Pavlova - A New Zealand Dessert

Please enjoy this post by a fellow "wannabefoodie", my Auntie! -Sierra

Jared and Sierra had us over for dinner this weekend, we brought this "most delicious" dessert.

I got this recipe from my sister in law, who got it from her sister. I was a little nervous about making it, but it turned out to be very easy and looks like I went to lots of trouble.

Here's the recipe:

Preheat over to 275 degrees

Butter the spring form pan ring well (you don’t need the bottom of the pan) and butter a circle on a cookie sheet about the same size

Sprinkle powdered sugar carefully around the ring, letting the extra go onto the cookie sheet

Mix together about 1 tablespoon CORNSTARCH and 1 tablespoon SUGAR– set aside

In a large bowl, start to mix 5 large EGG WHITES (room temp) with 1/8 tsp. SALT (hint: make sure your eggs are fresh!)

Gradually add 1 cup SUGAR, one tablespoon at a time. Beat well after each addition

Add the cornstarch and sugar mixture last.

Fold in 3 teaspoons WHITE VINEGAR and same amount of VANILLA, preferably good quality Mexican vanilla (yes, it’s better!)

Pile the meringue into the prepared pan. It will naturally find its way to the edges so don’t worry about making it perfect (less handling is probably best)

Bake for 2 hours at 275 degrees (yes, that low)

Turn the oven off open the door slightly and allow the meringue to cool completely. The tope of tip will have cracked and probably fallen but that’s o.k.)

Run a sharp knife around the edge and then slide it onto a serving platter.

Beat 2 cups HEAVY WHIPPING CREAM, sweetened with plenty of POWDERED SUGAR and MEXICAN STYLE VANILLA.

Pile the WHIPPED CREAM on the top of the meringue.

Top with plenty of fresh seasonal fruit – peaches, raspberries, strawberries, nectarines, etc. Kiwi also looks pretty.

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Brunch at Greenup Cafe

I'm not sure why it's taken as long as it has for us to write about this place. It's one of the first restaurants I visited when I moved to Northern KY earlier this year and, I've already frequented the place for brunch about 3x more than I've gone to any other restaurant in my entire lifetime . Suffice it to say the food is good: Damn good. But there's a lot of restaurants in the area with good food, so thats not the only reason Sierra and I are regulars.

First of all we need to discuss the pastries. A few years back I was in Paris just long enough to climb the Eiffel Tower and eat a few croissants. It was an eye opening experience especially for the burgeoning foodie in me who, up to that point, thought croissants were best had freshly warmed out of an exploding tube. These were different from anything else in the world. You could taste the history. You could sense years of trial and error, successes passed down through generations, finally culminating in the buttery layers between my teeth. Until I was introduced to Greenup, I hadn't experienced anything close. But the pastries here, honestly, are right on par. My favorites are the sticky bun and the raspberry cheese danish which, in particular, forces you to acknowledge why cheese and danishes were paired together to begin with. It's one of the best things I've ever eaten.

The second thing to point out about this place is that it's unique. There's always a place for pancakes and bacon but does everybody need to do it the same? You want to go out for breakfast/brunch on Saturday and "variety" usually means one egg or two. I can make plain eggs. But I can't make quiche like they do or homemade brioche like the kind they serve with their Eggs Benedict. And finally the coffee. I don't know where they get it but this, also, is the closest thing I've had to the European version.

guacamole

for me, nothing beats homemade guacamole.
i made some today and it was delicious.

i used:
2 ripe avocados, chopped
juice of one lime
1/4 to 1/2 cup red onion, diced
small jalapeño pepper, seeds removed, diced
a few cloves of garlic, diced
pinch or two of ground cumin
salt and pepper to taste
dash or two of Frank's red hot sauce (got this idea from Barefoot Contessa - love her!)

i've said for a long time that i could eat tortilla chips and guacamole everyday for the rest of my life. i really, really could.
i won't.
but i could.

"Godzilla"

on saturday morning jared and i went to Shadeau Breads in Over-The-Rhine. we've had their bread before (picked up a few loaves at Madison's) but we had never been to their actual bakery. we bought a multi grain loaf and we were delighted (horrified) to discover that they also make their own pastries.

meet "Godzilla": the richest, sweetest, most unbelievable pastry ever. the woman who makes it is obviously a genius. she told me that she affectionately named the massive pastry after a friend of hers. i'm not sure if i'd be offended or ecstatic to be that friend. it's hard to tell from the picture but, this aptly named pastry is the size of a child's face. its flaky, buttery, iced, ultra-sugary, filled with cinnamon, raisins and chopped nuts. its sticky glaze gets all over your face when you take a bite and you couldn't care less! it's truly one of the most decadent, and suitably named, breakfast pastries i've ever tasted.

to make up for our pastry transgressions, we ate a little more responsibly the rest of the day. for dinner we made one of our favorite moosewood recipes. it's probably more of a winter dish but i always crave things in the opposite season for some reason. either way it's a hit. easy to prepare, super flavorful and very satisfying.

Navajo Stew
(from Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers)

2 medium sweet potatoes
2 red or green bell peppers
1 large onion
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 15-oz can of tomatoes
1 tablespoon canned chipotles in adobo sauce
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 15-oz can of black beans, drained
flatbread (tortillas, lavash, or pita)
plain yogurt, sour cream

Preheat the over to 450 degrees. Lightly oil a baking sheet.

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into 1-inch cubes. Stem and seed the peppers and cut into 1-inch pieces. Peel the onion and cut it stem end to root end into thin wedges. In a bowl, toss the vegetables with the garlic, oil, cumin, salt and pepper. Spread on the prepared baking sheet and roast in the oven for about 10 minutes. Stir and continue to roast for another 10 to 15 minutes, until the sweet potatoes are tender but not mushy.

While the vegetables roast, puree the tomatoes, chipotles, and cilantro in a blender until smooth. Set aside. When the vegetables are tender, put them into a 2 to 3-quart baking dish, stir in the tomato-cilantro sauce and the beans, and return to the oven until hot, about 10 mins.

Serve in bowls topped with yogurt or sour cream with warm flatbread on the side.

quick cinnamon biscuits

jared made these yummy biscuits for us this morning.
another great recipe from the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics cookbook.

thursday's dinner

so i had thursday off work and i got the itch to try and fix something new for dinner and to have it ready by the time jared got home. unfortunately my timing was off so he ended up helping me cook. i don't think he minded, in fact i think he was glad to help. we enjoy cooking together. :)

earlier that day i visited the kenton county library and checked out a book that caught my attention. i was looking for either a Giada DiLaurentis or a Ellie Krieger book but, to my dismay, they were checked out. i did however find the Good Morning America "Cut the Calories" Cookbook. Sara Moulton edited the recipes with Jean Anderson. i flipped through a few pages and started to get hungry which i took as a good sign. the book is a collection of low-fat, low-cal recipes that viewers have sent in to the show. i'm always interested in health conscious cooking so i couldn't wait to open up the book, find a recipe and prepare it for jared and i.

i decided on the "Fast and Easy Fusilli with Red Pepper Cream Sauce". only 370 cals and 9g fat per serving. you would never know that the recipe is "low fat". the red pepper sauce is rich and creamy. with fresh lemon zest that is delicate and aromatic, so good for summer. the best part is the satisfying, warming spice from the cayenne. i like a sauce to be spicy enough to require my mouth a few seconds to recover. we topped the fusilli pasta with the red pepper sauce, fresh grated Parmesan and fresh basil. i bought almost all my ingredients locally at Kremers market (the only thing they didn't have was low-fat cream cheese). it was a quick, light and delicious weeknight meal. and it warmed up great the next day for lunch.

after the pasta i made low-fat chocolate chip cookies from the same recipe book. my plan was to bring cookies into work to celebrate someone's birthday i work with. the cookies were so terrible that i had to start from scratch and make a full-fat recipe. thanks for jared's subscription to cook's illustrated online, we were able to look up a fail-proof, classic peanut butter cookie recipe and we had it whipped up in no time. they turned out pretty phenomenal. at least i think so. it consider myself "redeemed" after my low-fat chocolate chip disaster. i love making cookies. as long as they're the full-fat kind. i will never try my luck with the healthy ones again. :)

kitchen tools

when it comes to cooking there are two things that have forever changed my life.

one is this:














and the other is this:














the first picture is an instant-read digital thermometer and the second picture is a knife sharpener. before i had an instant read, cooking any sort of meat was hit or miss. most recipes give you the cooking temperature and time, but every kitchen seems to work different so i so i lost trust. i had to resort to slicing into every cut of meat to make sure i wasn't servin' up raw chicken or nuking the steak. but every time i did that i was just making things worse; if i was lucky enough to avoid turning things to sawdust, the end result was a tender, juicy, sliced up mess. now that i've got one of these, i know if i cook broiled chicken to 165 degrees (in the thickest part) it comes out moist and tender no matter where i'm cooking.

the knife sharpener is another must have kitchen tool as far as i'm concerned. the one pictured here is not all that traditional, but its cheap and it works. hey, if you want to pay $30 more for one that will sharpen your knives in 5 less strokes, go for it - as long as it works. but either way, get one and use it often. if your used to cutting through vegetables and mincing garlic with a dull blade, see how much more satisfying it is with a razor sharp edge. its like putting on a new pair of shoes. are your knives sharp enough to cut through the skin of tomato without applying pressure? it not, time you added one of these to your collection.