a little bit of hawaii: a paleo chicken recipe

I have a secret.

Okay, well it's not really a secret...but I LOVE pineapple.

I think it's the perfect chilled summer fruit on a hot day. It's great in the winter to remind me of summer. It's amazing in smoothies. On top of ice cream. On pizza. Basically, it's one of the most diverse fruits I know of and I love to cook with it.

I have another secret.

Until a year ago, I had never cut a pineapple.

I feel silly saying this now, but it was so easy to buy pre-cut pineapple or even canned chunks of the delicious fruit. With all of my food sensitivities now, I find that the more self-preparation I can do, the more secure I feel that I won't get sick.

Plus, pineapples aren't as difficult to chop up as I always thought they would be! My dream for next summer is to find a pineapple corer to make the process even easier (and to help keep down the amount of pineapple wasted by cutting it up with a knife.)

We picked up a pineapple a few weeks ago, so I decided to do a bit of experimenting. It was more of an "add a bit of this and a dash of that" situation, but it was delicious! It's similar to a Hawaiian-shoyu chicken casserole. I made it again today and wrote it all down so I could share it with you! You can alter any of the ingredient amounts to taste.


Ingredients:

• 4 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 pineapple
• 2-3 bell peppers (I like to get three different colors to make it more festive!)
• The juice of 1 large orange (or approx. 1/3 cup of fresh orange juice)
• 1/3 cup raw honey
• 1/3 cup coconut aminos (or soy sauce if you're not worried about being Paleo)
• 2 tablespoons organic tomato paste
• 2 cloves of garlic, pressed (or two tsp. minced garlic)
• 1 teaspoon salt 
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375. Cube the chicken and pineapple; put in a 9x13 inch casserole dish. Slice bell peppers and add them to the dish. 

In a separate bowl, mix all other ingredients. Spoon the mixture over the chicken, pineapple, and pepper mix. Stir well to coat chicken. Cover and bake for approximately 40 minutes.  (Note, our oven cooks a bit differently than others, so your timing may be slightly different.)

I've put this over rice (of course, that would negate the Paleo-ness of the recipe) and over cauliflower rice. Today, I used it as the stuffing for grain free fajitas (click here for the tortilla recipe) and it was delicious!