Hawaiian Feast

I randomly decided that I was going to make a Hawaiian themed meal for dinner recently.  I'm not quite sure what prompted this other than I had seen a couple good recipes I wanted to try. Ironically enough pineapple was even on sale for the occasion. For the menu I decided to make strawberry lava flow cocktails to start with, tropical salad with pineapple vinaigrette, Hawaiian chicken kabobs, served with pineapple fried rice. It was a fun little menu for a Friday night, something different for a change. I even served the pineapple fried rice IN the hollowed out pineapple for fun.

 The best part of the meal had to be the strawberry lava flow's! Mike asked me to make them again the night after and was asking me about them again last night. These are officially our new favorite cocktails and they were just as good as they were in Hawaii. The only thing we were missing were straws and little umbrellas (which I will be picking up for going forward). I am officially declaring these our Friday afternoon happy hour cocktails!

Strawberry Lava Flow Cocktails
Source: About.Com

Ingredients:
1 oz. light rum
1/4 cup Malibu® coconut rum
1/4 cup fresh or frozen strawberries
1 small banana
1/4 cup unsweetened pineapple juice
1/4 cup coconut cream
(we only used Malibu and doubled it)

Directions:
Blend the 2 rums and the strawberries in a blender to form a smooth paste. Pour this mixture into a tall (Collins or Hurricane) glass. Rinse the blender. Blend the banana, the coconut cream, and the pineapple juice in blender with crushed ice until smooth. Pour this mixture into the glass with the rums very slowly and watch as the strawberry mixture oozes its way to the top along the sides of the glass creating the flowing lava effect. Garnish with a pineapple wedge and paper umbrella and enjoy!