Pavlova--YUM!!!

soooo good!

That is all I need to say. So delicious, light creamy, bits of crunchy from the meringue with the bright and sweet tastes of the fresh berries. What can be better.

Been wanting to test this recipe. I was thinking that I would maybe make mini ones for the restaurant. I needed to see if it would hold up, how long it would keep and if anyone would like it. I needed an audience to test beside me and WG. 

Then my audience arrived this month. Friends taking their daughter back to college, staying at the house as their home base. And foodies on top of it, perfect!

The pavlova was the finishing course of 4 course meal:

• STARTER: grilled tomato salsa and prosecco
• SALAD: panzanella salad and champagne
• MAIN: grilled rack of goat and shrimp and red wine
• DESSERT: pavlova with lilikoi mousse, sweeten whipped cream, blackberries and raspberries

Will post more about this meal but this post it's all about the sweets and I wanted to share this recipe. Great presentation and so delicious. You will make your guests very impressed and happy.

Used the Ina Garten's Mixed Berry Pavlova recipe. I didn't think the oven was hot enough and baking time seemed too short because I didn't think the meringue wasn't crisp enough. With further research, I've found some other recipes that I may try this again. One from Smittenkitchen.com, that took me to this one from SimpleRecipes.com.

Here's some pictures of my pavlova. The meringue cake can be made ahead. It takes the longest time. But what I did was make it in the morning and let it sit until my guest arrive and put it together right before serving. 

the meringue cake

I had 2 layers on top of the meringue cake. The center layer was lilikoi mousse that I made up with some leftover lilikoi syrup for another recipe [fail] and blackberries and raspberry. Top layer was whipped cream with the rest of the berries.

I whipped up a cup of cold heavy cream with 1/4 of sugar, till I got stiff peaks. Watch out you don't make butter. Then I put half of it in another bowl and added the lilikoi syrup. The lilikoi syrup I have was from a failed attempt from this recipe http://userealbutter.com/2015/01/28/blood-orange-pate-de-fruit-recipe/. I was trying to make an orange passionfruit version on my first try and it didn't set which left me syrup. If I made the syrup from scratch, I would make up as simple syrup and add the juice and reduce to it became syrup-y. You don't need that much to flavor the whipped cream. I probably added about 1/4 to 1/3 cup. It's mostly to taste.

My friend and her daughter assembled the pavlova. They lovingly distributing the berries on each layer. But if you are lazy like me, you can plop the lilikoi mousse on the meringue cake. The berries on top of mousse, the whipped cream on top of the berries and drizzle he  lilikoi syrup on top of all of it.

all put together

with the drizzle of lilikoi syrup

The five of us tried our best to eat all of it but we couldn't. The leftovers [for me and WG, twist our arms] was eaten the next day, not as good texture-wise, a smig soggy but taste-wise still delicious. Try it! You and your guest will not be disappointed.

Pie, Mixed Berries!

Haven't made pie in while. I have some visitors and some sweet berries at the house. Decide to surprise them when they get back from the day of adventure with mixed berry crumble pie. Strawberry, blueberry blackberry and raspberry [the blackberries and raspberries are frozen in my freezer] mix, I love this combination. 

Prepped the strawberries last night while the my blueberry peach jam was cooking. Before I started the crust this morning I went out for a morning walk. What a beautiful day. Even got to see a heron by the river. 

For my crust, I use Smitten Kitchen's buttery crust recipe . It is my go to recipe for pies, sooo buttery.

2 sticks of butter in this crust

all the ingredients are prepped and ready to become a pie

All done mixing, this looks good. Now for a good chill down in the refrigerator. A quick shower for me and run out to my farmers market.

can you see the butter chunks in the dough. yum!

I read up on how to avoid soggy bottom crust. Most article suggest blind baking the crust. I put it in a 450º oven for 8 minutes with parchment paper and pie weights [I use a lentils] then remove the weights and continue to bake for about 5–8 minutes more. Forgot to take a shot. Multi-tasking, making marinade for tonight dinner. Let cool while you mix up the filling

ready for the crumb . . .

. . . into the oven

Juicy, right out of the oven

Glad it didn't spill

For the filling, I had made a recipe a while back that I can't find anymore. It came out really nice, just thick enough that it wasn't not runny all over. 

UPDATE: Still VERY JUICY and it ran over the crust on the side to the bottom crust. Soggy. This is what I'll do next time. I'll mix the fruit with sugar and let it macerate, then drain the juice. Up the corn starch to 4 T and mix it in with the cinnamon. The taste was good, just the right sweet but I'd think it needed a 1/2 t more of cinnamon. The crumb was great. Maybe I'll make this one more time, to see if my adjustments work. Stay tune.

Here's a link from King Arthur Flour on pie filling thickeners that I thought was helpful after the fact. 

Preheat oven to 375º

Filling

6 c  mixed berries, I used 2 c strawberries, chopped, 2 c blueberries, 1 c blackberries and 1 c raspberries

zest and juice of 1 lemon

1/2 c brown sugar

1/4 c corn starch

1 t cinnamon

2T butter, chopped up into small pieces 

Mix together all the ingredient for the filling except for the butter. Pour filling into the your crust then add the butter pieces to the top. 

Topping

1/2 c brown sugar

1/2 c granulated sugar

1/2 c flour

1/2 c old fashion oatmeal

1 t cinnamon

1/4 t salt

1 stick butter, chopped into smaller pieces

1 c walnuts, chopped

Mix together all the ingredients for the topping till you get a crumbly appearance. Add to the top of the pie.

Bake for an hour, crumb should be golden brown and filling should be bubbling. Let rest for at least an 1/2 hour. Can be serve at room temp or even cold. 

Pickled Veggies and Trying to Take to a Better Shot

Starting my prep on the red and yellow carrots

My first pickles of the seasons. Finally got out to Rutgers Garden Farmers market last Friday. Chickadee Creek Farms had some red and yellow carrots, fennel and beets. All my favorites. I decided to make Smitten Kitchen's pickled veggie sandwich slaw, the carrots will go great in this recipe. I've made this several time with great success, I posted about it here. I also thought this would be a perfect recipe to practice shooting with the borrowed camera. I hope I'm getting better. I need to start applying it to the restaurant shots.

To start my new year off

I baked two recipes that I had in my new recipe baking queue. Baking for the restaurant always put new recipes on at the end of the queue.

First up, smittenkitchen's Cranberry pie with thick pecan cumble. This has been in the back of my mind since I read the post. I love anything with crumble and this combination with of the tart cranberry filling and a sweet crumble sounded great. 

Right out of the oven

first slice, dust with powdered sugar and dollop of whipped cream

The cranberry filling isn't really that tart. It really goes will with the crumble and whipped cream. smittenkitchen's pie crust is so delicious, so buttery and flakey.  I'm sharing this one with the restaurant and hope the customers like it.

Next up, RasaMalaysia's Pineapple Tarts. Found these on pinterest and was hoping I had a free moment in my baking schedule to make these up. I think what got me was the pineapple jam. 

pineapple jam  and egg wash

tarts filled, scored and washed

golden brown

first bite, YUM!

With this recipe, it is all about prep. I made the jam first, takes a while to get out the water from the pineapple. Not like your normal jam that sticky and syrupy [I guess I could make it more like that with more sugar]. It's more chunky and not too sweet. 

Then I got the egg wash ready, I made this up now before I forgot. I add some condensed milk as the note at the end of the recipe suggested. Adding condensed milk to any this is good.

The dough at first looked like it was going to be trouble. But the more you kneaded it stop sticking and it wan't too hard after that. 

These tart are so good. The jam are perfectly sweet and the dough is light and slightly sweet. I think I may try this dough with an pan. 

For my last item of the first day of the year, Ozoni. It's a soup, clear broth, I usually make a chicken soup with mizuna [japanese mustard greens] with mochi. But I didn't plan this out well and didn't have most of the ingredients plus started to get lazy. So I decided to go to the restaurant to for the soup and add the mochi to it. Here's a recipe from PBS Food/Marc Matsumoto for Ozoni if you want to make up some. Ozoni is usually eaten on New Year's Day for good luck for the coming year. But it is a great filling soup for anytime of year. Have great 2015! 

Clear broth with mixed veggies and garlic oil from the restaurant with mochi 

Peaches, More Peaches and Apriums

Guess who brought home fruit today. You got it. WG!! I bought a basket of peaches from the farmers market last week and just prepped the last of it for a second batch of jam. I'm making a small batch of peach butter with a recipe from smitten kitchen. 

FYI: peach butter like apple butter has no dairy in it. This recipe is only fruit, sugar, water,  lemon juice and time to cook down and thicken up. The house smelled great--very peachy. 

Jamming in my new vintage jam pot

Slightly shy of 2 pints of peach butter

Then WG walks in with a giant box of fruit. Now I have a box of white peaches, to tend to. Not sure why WG bought it. He doesn't really like white peaches [I like them but I can't eat this much]. He always complains that they are too tart for him. Well, if he doesn't like batch, I guess, I'll use some of them to make a batch of my white peach cupcakes. I haven't made a batch this year. Maybe I'll pick up some raspberries from the farmers market to combine with it. hmmmm. . . .maybe white peach and raspberry cupcakes with raspberry buttercream. 

Enough complaining about too much fruit, on to the next stone fruit. . . . I've been in search of those sweet italian plums, deep dark purple on the outside, yellow/green on the inside to make a batch of jam. Haven't seen them but I've missed the farmers market a couple of weeks in a row. Did I miss them already. Sad face!

These were from last year, so sweet! I hope I didn't miss you.

But I've might have found a substitute if I missed the italian plums--Apriums. It's a hybrid of apricots and plums--75% apricot. Apricot and Plum jam are my favorites, so these will probably be a great sub. They have a reddish plum skin-not the fuzzy apricot skin with slight orange inside. It's really sweet, kind of a combination of apricot/plum flavor. WG liked these. Making a small batch of jam to see how it taste and eat the rest. 

Prepped and ready to be jammed

Used the Plum Jam recipe from Jellies and Other Sweet Preserves by Linda Ziedrich, adjusted that sugar slightly because these were so sweet. 

Beautiful red color and what a great taste

This is what I got. 2 pints of beautiful red sweetness. Will definitely pick them up again, when I'm finally out of fruit.

By the way, WG came home with a pineapple and melon plus 8 lbs of strawberries, too. He asked me if 6lbs was enough for me. Oye! what is he thinking. He is the man of "more is better". He also does this with other things than food, too. I think is is early signs of being a hoarder. 

Sigh! Guess who, gets to toss these things out. 

My, oh my, I'm so busy!

And I haven't posted for a month. Thought about it . . . hmmm, should I post or watch continue to watch Homeland . . . hmmm. 

That's what happens when you learn how to use your cable box and see what kind of free stuff you can watch. Now, I'm suck into Homeland and I need to make it stop. If only Homeland would make want to exercise at the same time. You know like a combination Homeland and Insanity workout. 

I've been really busy and not with baking stuff. Been working late at my job-job. Thank goodness, I was smart enough to ask if I could work from home Thanksgiving week.  On Monday and Tuesday, I put in 12 hour+ days only stopping when WG came home from the restaurant. But I have been making . . .

"WHAT?" you asked

Lilikoi Tea Cupcakes with Lilikoi Jelly filling and cream cheese frosting

that lilikoi filling peaking out under the frosting

Using stuff that I got and made from Hawaii--Lilikoi tea and Lilikoi Jelly. The jelly looks a bit scary--like an experiment gone bad. A dark almost black color. But don't let that fool you it is soooooo good. {see my post on the making of the lilikoi jelly} Found some frozen passion fruit at my supermarket and will be testing out some lilikoi [now do I really call it lilikoi if I got it from the frozen food section my suburban supermarket?] curd next. Maybe I'll try some lilikoi bars. 

All filled with goodness

So these cupcakes are version of my earl grey cupcakes with orange marmalade filling. The jelly was a little loose so I heated it up and add some cold butter to thicken up. Tested out at work first, it was a thumbs up. Then made a batch for the restaurant.

What I've been cooking . . . again and will cook again

I've been moving up the ladder of canning and started pickling. But instead of have bottles of pickles stacked on my shelves, I've been stuck on one recipe because it so delicious and adds so much interest to my eating routine: Pickled Veggie Sandwich Slaw from smittenkitchen.com. In addition to the tasting great, the finish product looks so beautiful. It's a great gift.

I made my second batch with most of the veggies from my farmers market--heirloom carrots (purple and yellow) [the yellow was incredibly sweet], radishes, red and orange peppers, garlic scapes, kirby cucumbers, celery and sugar snap (from the asian food store). 

waiting for the brine

purple carrot, some are much more yellow inside

The purple carrots added some color to the brine. Making it even more beautiful. I ended up with 2 pints and 6 half pints.

marinating in my fridge. YUM!

Another great way to eat this slaw on top of a pulled pork sandwich. Sandwich provided by, of course, Cafe Bua. From our daily lunch specials. It add an extra tanginess and crunch to the sandwich. 

Sandwich from the restaurant, pickle slaw by me from the 1st batch

Tomorrow's Lunch and beyond

I've been really good at bring my lunch and sometimes breakfast to work most days. And with my new eating routine, I've been trying to cook healthier. I've been wanting to make Curried Lentils and Sweet Potatoes from smittenkitchen.com for a while. Probably would have been better to make it when the weather was cooler. But making it now, I have the swiss chard from my garden.

As always at the beginning of a new recipe, I always think I have all the ingredients. This time I checked before and even went out to get what I was missing. Oh well, I guess I still have vacation brain.

Not enough sweet potato--added 1 regular potato

Forgot the curry powder from the restaurant--used the vindaloo powder instead and eliminated the jalapeno, thought it would be spicy enough

No cilantro--used flat leaf parsley from my garden instead

Too lazy to go out and get tamari almonds--use this savory nut topping that I picked and TJ's to try. Can't remember where I read about but at least I get to use it.

I didn't cook it as long as the recipe said because I used small lentil and they cooked up much quicker. I think I could have added a little more vindaloo powder but I think I should wait to see what how the taste develops when I eat it for lunch.

It makes enough for at least 6 servings. I packed away 2 serving in the freezer. 1 for lunch today, 1 my nephew at for his dinner last night and 2 more for the next two day's lunches. I hope I don't get too sick of it by then. Next up is on my savory cooking list: Portuguese sausage empanadas/hand pies with the last of the Portuguese sausage from Hawaii. Here's a couple of pictures. I never remember to get pictures of the ingredients and the beginning steps.

Cooking lentils and potatoes with spices and broth

Chopped swiss chard from my garden

Loved the color when I added the swiss chard

Got a new canning pot

Just fit on the burner.

My big old faithful pot seems to be leaking and I can't have that happen--too much water on my stovetop put my oven out of commission for 4 days in May. 

Now with my brand new pot, I've been jamming away. By the end of this week, I will have jammed 9 lbs of fruit--two batches of strawberry and one batch of mixed berry. 

I survive the making of 100+

To be exact 101 cupcakes for office event, 15 macarons [dumped almost a full batch. I had no patience left to gently remove from the slipat sheet because they were slightly overmixed and underdone again and kept cracking. Argh!!!!!!!!!!!!] and 1 batch of cupcakes for the restaurant's valentine sweets. Pictured above are the 101,  pre-frosting and filled, waiting to get all dolled up for the big event.

I wanted to show off my beautiful quiche

Made with rainbow swiss chard and comte cheese. I was so impressed at how it looked and smelled right out of the oven. I used smittenkitchen's leek and mushroom quiche recipe. I sauteed some 1/2 onion, sliced in olive oil and butter. Added the stems first to soften up [the onions turned pink from the red stems], then the leaves, covered to wilt down the leaves. Seasoned with salt and pepper and a dash of fish sauce [the crazy thai influence]. Continued to cook evaporate the some of liquid. 

Followed the quiche part recipe pretty close, my dairy was half milk and half heavy cream, use grated comte cheese, about a 1/4 cup and I didn't add the additional butter. 

I just had it for my lunch, not too heavy but creamy and just the right amount of saltiness and chard gives a great texture to the quiche. And the crust is flaky and light [I'm glad because I'm still working on my crust]. Maybe if I can find the time [haha], I can make a quiche for the weekend brunch specials.