Pavlova

Pavlova is a meringue based dessert that was named for the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova who was considered the greatest ballerina of her time. The dessert is reminiscent of a ballerina is that it is very light and airy. Traditionally the dessert consists of a meringue base, then whip cream, and then fruit on top. I have modified how I make it however in that I fold whip cream in with vanilla pudding and use that as a second layer. This gives the dessert a bit more depth than just whipped cream. Any fresh fruit can be used, let your imagination guide what you think would work.

Meringue Base

4 large egg whites
1 cup supferfine (castor) sugar
1 tsp white vinegar
1/2 tablespoon cornstarch

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

Beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Slowly add the sugar a tablespoon at a time. Continue beating until stiff peaks are formed. Also you should be able to rub the meringue between your fingers and not feel any grainy sugar. If you are still feeling grit, continue beating until the sugar dissolves into the egg whites. Sprinkle the merinuge with the vinegar and corstarch and fold in.

The merinuge must be then transferred to a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet and shaped into your base making sure to keep the side higher to hold in the "filling." If you want more of a marshmallowy textutre in your meringue you will want to work more to create height to your meringue. If you want more of a crispy texture you will want more width. Generally the typical area you will want is about a seven inch circle.

Transfer the cookie sheet to the pre-heated oven and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes. The outside should be dry and the meringue should have a pale color. Turn the oven off and let the meringue cool in the oven with the door slightly open. The meringue can then be removed and stored for a few days if needs be. Remember that it must be stored in a cool and DRY place. Meringue exposed to moisture will quickly fall apart.

Vanilla Pudding

1/2 Cup Sugar
2 Tbs cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
2 C milk
2 Tbs butter
2 tsp vanilla

1 Cup cream
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 Tablespoons sugar

Combine sugar cornstarch and salt in a medium saucepan. Add milk and cook on medium high heat. Cook the pudding stirring constantly until the mixture starts to thicken up and starts to boil. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the butter and the vanilla. Let the pan cool for 5 minutes and then apply plastic wrap to the top of the pudding (so that it doesn't develop a skin) and transfer the pan to the refridgerator and let it chill completely.

Beat the cream vanilla and sugar together until soft peaks form.

Remove the chilled pudding from the refridgerator and whisk a bit to make it smooth. Then fold in the whipped cream. This will create enough for approximately two pavlovas, so the recipe can be halved, or you can use the pudding and/or pudding whip cream mixture for other items.

Assembling the Pavlova

Fill your meringue base with half of the pudding/whip cream mixture. Top with fresh fruit such as: strawberries, peaches, blackberries, kiwi, passionfruit, etc.

Enjoy!

NOTE!! Pavlova will quickly disintegrated as the moisture from the pudding will dissolve the meringue base. This is a dessert that once it has been assembled it must be eaten within a few hours before it is just a mushy mess.

Instant Applesauce

Wow time flies by, and suddenly it is September. With the onset of Fall, I am always reminded of the orchard my family owned growing up. The orchard was my grandfather's, but my family only lived about 30 minutes away and thus we were often helping out at the orchard on weekends and even some weeknights in the Fall.

Growing up I wasn't a big fan of the orchard, however, as I've gotten older, I sometimes miss those Fall days spent near the mouth of Payson canyon. It was on the orchard that my siblings and I learned the first stages of driving as we took the old tractor up and down the rows of apple and cherry trees usually with the flat bed trailer following behind. The trailer would often times be loaded down with bushels of newly picked apples that would then have to be taken to the packing shed where they would be polished and sorted.

Dull apples that had been picked from the trees would have leaves hand picked off of them and then they would roll over a series of brushes that would shine them up and take the dust off. They would then run up a conveyor belt roll down a gradually widening track which would thus sort the apples by size. Most of my time spent on the apple sorter would be spent pulling apples from the bins where they had been deposited and putting them into bushel baskets which would then later be sold.

While the orchard often had many chores to be done, we of course found ways to cause mischief. One particular day my sister and I learned to flip apples. We were down, far away from the packing shed at the other end of the orchard. Naturally there would always be apples littering the ground that had fallen off and would usually be left to either rot or some people would come and gather them for juicing later. We found that if we took the apples and put them on a slight flexible stick we could whip the stick and then the apples would bo soaring through the air--what a great discovery! We were near the road, and so we would flip the apples from our orchard to the other orchard across the road, just to see how far we could get them to go. Luckily we were smart enough that whenever we saw a car coming we would wait until the car had passed before resuming our new past time. What we didn't consider as much were the power and telephone lines that ran along the other side of the road. I don't remember which one of us actually hit the line, but as soon as the apple touched it seemed to just explode--what exactly happened I'm not entirely sure, but I am pretty sure there are better ways of making applesauce.

The Peep Show

This post is a bit outdated as far as things happening in my life, but oh well, better late then never.

Last year the Washington Post held a competition for people to display Peeps in diorama style. Yes, I do mean Peeps, the little sugar coated marshmallow treats that were originally associated with Easter, but now seem to pop up at every holiday. The reaction was so overwhelmingly positive that I believe that it will become an annual tradition.

This year, I was lucky enough to be able to see the Peep Show in person at Art-o-matic (an art show for amature artists usually put in a building that is being renovated). Below are some of my favorites from this year's Peep Show.


Abbey Road

Lunch building the skycraper (from the famous photograph)

Moving of "The Awakening" (a statue that was moved from Hain's Point to the Capitol Harbor Project, much to my dismay)

Fra-gee-lay! (A Christmas Story)

Project Peepway

The official page including the other finalists is here.

To view 2007's Peep show finalists, click here.

My Twin

I'd like to dedicate this blog to my twin. Many of you may not know that I have a twin, but I do. My twin's name is Elizabeth, and she's a great twin, one of the best to have--and those of you that know her will definitely agree to how wonderful she is. Now my twin may have been born a few years before I was, but miraculously, we are actually the same age. Don't ask, just accept.

So a few years back, my twin told me, "When you are rich and famous, I just want one thing. Just one. A nice beautiful Hummer in my driveway." (This was when gas prices were below $3 a gallon, remember those days? sigh....)

"And what color of a Hummer would you like?"

"Green. That's all I am asking for, a green Hummer. It isn't much, but it would make me very happy."

Again, those of you that know my twin, know that you don't tell her no. If she makes a request, you do it. That's just how it is. I don't think my twin realized that I would fulfill this wish, but, I have a few tricks up my sleeve.

Fast forward a year or so...it was coming up to our birthday, when suddenly I said....I have a job now, it is time for me to buy my twin her Hummer. However, I realized that it was a bit late to have the Hummer delivered in time for the actual birthday. This didn't deter me though, it had to be done this year. So I did it, I bought a brand new green Hummer for my twin and had it delivered directly to her door.

Now every year I call my twin on our birthday and wish her a happy birthday, and so I did this year as well. However, I didn't tell her of the coming delivery that she would be receiving in the next few days, I wanted it to come as a shock when she walked up her driveway to see a sparkling brand new Hummer for her to have fun with.

The day finally arrived, and the Hummer was delivered. My twin said it was one of the best presents that she had ever received and was so excited to play with her brand new Hummer and immediately thanked me for such a wonderful gift.

Unfortunately, I have yet to see the gift, as I have not been able to visit my twin's house since when I bought her the gift, however, I have pasted the picture below from the site that I bought the Hummer from so you can all enjoy the beauty of this fine piece of technology.

Driving a manual transmission

So I drive a manual transmission car. What can I say, I love shifting gears as I speed down the highway. Often people will ask me if it gets annoying to drive in traffic with a manual transmission, always putting in the clutch as you are in bumper to bumper traffic. Sure, that can be annoying at times, but in the end, yeah definitely all worth it. However, there are certain things to remember when driving a manual transmission...

I got home one night and my mind was occupied on something or other, who knows what. I proceeded to get out of my car and shut the door. Out of habit, I immediately locked the car with my keys. I started to walk towards my house when I noticed that my car was rolling backwards down the very slight incline that there is in front of my house. Ack!!!! I had forgotten to enage the parking brake!

Instinctively I ran back to the car, jerking on the handle, only to realize, that yes, I had indeed locked the car. I fumble through my pocket for the keys (this is the part that you are glad for keyless unlocking so I didn't have to put the key into the lock itself) and somehow manage to get the car unlocked.

At this point the car is going slightly faster. My heart is racing as I jerk the door open and pull on the parking brake. Phew! And today must have been my lucky day because there was no one parked immediately behind me--however, lesson learned--don't forget to use your parking brake if you drive a manual transmission! (ok I knew this lesson beforehand, sometimes I just need a refresher now and then).

Fresh Fruit Tart

Well, summer has arrived and with it, fruit is coming on. Now I admit this post is a little bit erroneous in that I bought the strawberries at Costco and thus I could have bought them at any time of year...and the blueberries were actually frozen from last summer (blueberries don't come on here until about July). Nevertheless, it was a nice summer treat. I could re-write the recipe...but instead it is probably just easier to post the website address.

http://www.joyofbaking.com/FruitTart.html

Enjoy!

Lighting up the National Cathedral

So one of the joys of living in a large international city is having a variety of events being brought in. A few weeks ago the embassies opened their doors to visitors and throughout the intervening weeks, a variety of cultural events were presented around town. One such event was a lighting presentation at the National Cathedral. I could go on, but I think the pictures speak for themselves.