Drinks with umbrellas in them
The other day I saw a random stock photo of people sitting on banana lounges by a pool sipping tropical drinks from pineapple halves.
I don’t have a bucket list (the last thing I need is another to-do list) but I immediately tweeted that my life was incomplete because I’d never drunk out of a pineapple.
So today, our shopping list included two whole pineapples and a coconut. Chris has long since learned to obey strange requests, so he bought them without comment (he does the shopping).
Here’s what I made, adjusted from here since I’m incapable of just following a recipe (but if you want a proper one with measurements and stuff, go there).
Step 1: Freeze milk into ice cube trays. You will use half of one normal-sized tray.
Step 2: Gather ingredients:
-Milk frozen into cubes (as above)
-2 pineapples (For me, the edible parts added up to about 500g including juice.)
-Milk from one coconut (roughly 200mL) or a can (400mL)
-Natural, vanilla, or coconut yogurt
-A pack of those teeny paper umbrellas
-Straws (plastic or metal can stand straight up in a pineapple cup, but you’ll need to be careful to clean them immediately after drinking or they’ll get super gross).
Optional:
-Some banana (but be cautious; the drink needs to be able to get through a straw if you don’t want to eat it with a spoon).
-Grated coconut (possibly fresh, if you’re up for it)
-Ice (again, keeping in mind that one can’t drink from the rim of a pineapple so you’ll probably have to use either huge large blocks that stay out of your straw’s way, or crush your ice VERY finely).
-A thermomix. Thermomix smash!
Could be interesting/awesome:
-Other tropical fruits (mango?)
-Avocado
-Sweetened condensed milk
Step 3: Extract most of the pineapple from your pineapples without stabbing them through (or stabbing yourself at all).
I used a large knife to cut them in half (making four “cups”) then made a cross-hatch through the fruity part (like a noughts-and-crosses board with the pineapple core in the centre). Then I used a metal spoon to scoop out various bits, sorting them into fruit and core and cutting again as needed (I took the good fruit out first, then cut a + into the core so I could take it out in pieces). Every so often your “cup” will get super juicy – just pour it into your blender and keep going.
Leave plenty of pineapple in the “cup”.
Step 4: Get the milk out of the coconut. I stabbed it with a skewer and then drained it through a strainer (to catch any random bits from the outside of the coconut) into a bowl. (It works better if you stab more than one eye; for me only one worked. I ended up standing over the sink shaking the coconut until it was empty which took a couple of minutes and was actually kind of fun.)
Step 5: Thoroughly blend pineapple chunks, coconut milk, your frozen milk cubes, and four good dollops of yogurt.
Step 6: Check the taste and texture, and adjust if necessary.
Step 7: Pour into pineapple cups and (if you have time) stick it in the fridge for up to an hour and/or add ice cubes. Leftovers will need a jug or something.
Step 8: Add straws, metal spoons (enthusiastic people can manually extract more pineapple from their cups), and (optional) grated coconut to garnish.
Serves four, including multiple refills.
Felicity Banks 
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