2 days ago I made 'Pavlova' for dessert. It's an Australian/New Zealand dish named after the ballerina Anna Pavlova. It is a crispy meringue topped with fresh whipped cream and strawberries. It makes an INCREDIBLE appearance and the taste is great too.
I personally found this one a little too sweet, but Darling & Jax thought it was perfect. The recipe said it served 12, but we cut 6 large slices and ate half of it. I highly recommend it; it's not as hard as it looks. I used a recipe from allrecipes.com. I use alot of egg whites in my cooking and therefore buy the cartons of egg whites from the store. After 4 years (!) I have finally found out why, why, why they don't firm up when used in meringues. In small print located on the side of the carton it says the egg whites are pasterized during packaging and are therefore, not suitable for meringues. Better late than never, I guess :-)
Darling, Stephen & I read a new 'Boxcar Children' book on the way to Darling's work every morning. Right now we are reading 'The Snowbound Mystery' (my personal favorite, by the way). In the book the 4 children interface with an excellent baker whose speciality is buns. Well, what more inspiration do we need than that? Stephen and I dropped Darling off at work and headed home to make buns. We used this recipe:
http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2009/07/light-brioche-burger-buns/ and could not be more pleased! I love homemade bread, but typically it's not my absolute favorite for a sandwich. This one is an exception! It was perfect by itself with butter and it was perfect with hamburgers (our lunch). It too, was surprisingly easy to make (for bread).
