Meringues

Meringues are fluffy, sweet and light. My best description: biting into a meringue is like biting into a crispy cloud.

The ingredients are few and the recipe is easy.

Ingredients:
3 Egg Whites
1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar
3/4 cups Powdered Sugar
1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract

Beat the egg whites until they are frothy and thick. At this point, you fold in the cream of tartar. The purpose of the cream of tartar is to maintain the thick consistency of the thick, frothy egg whites, otherwise it lose its Consistency and become liquidy again. Continue to beat the eggs until they form solid peaks that hold. Slowly mix in the sugar and lastly add in the vanilla extract. This is also the step where if you desire to change the colour of your meringues, you may. My meringues are blue; I added about 4 drops of food colouring to reach the desired shade.

I used a cake decorating tube to make the little swirly shapes you can see in the photos above. The cookie sheet was lined with wax paper (a cheaper alternative to the recommended parchment paper). Because these were cooked only at approximately 150º F, the wax paper did not melt. With higher temperatures, I would not recommend using wax paper - it becomes a sticky mess.

There wasn't a set time in which I let the meringues cook. My way of checking on them was to open the oven every 20 minutes or so and touch them. Once they feel solid, dry and flaky, they are done. Let them cool before popping them off the sheet. Since the wax paper stick a bit to the bottoms, I used a metal spatula to pop each one up. They came out better than I expected!

Thai Garden - Northampton, MA

Yesterday Anna packed up the entire kitchen and we made the trek up to New York. Unfortunately, we forgot to get some paper plates and plastic forks, so we decided to go downtown to Thai Garden for lunch with our friend Trish. They're really good with food allergies and the lunch menu is reasonably priced. Anna got a chili chicken stir fry dish with rice, Trish got a red curry with white rice, and I got a Yum Noodle dish. The portions were plentiful and the dishes were moderately spicy. I made some great memories here in the past few years and I'll miss it greatly when I'm off to New York and beyond.

Gohyhang Korean Restaurant

Anna wanted to go to the Korean restaurant in Hadley, so we did for dinner. Alex and Claire DS came along and were wonderful company. The food was delicious and they were very accommodating with everyone's food needs. Claire DS got the sweet potato noodles with vegetables, Alex got a stir fry tofu dish, Anna got a seafood rice bowl, and I got a regular rice bowl with beef. The appetizers were really fresh and I wish we had more opportunities to come back. It's all good though! :)

Last Night's Dinner

The plan for Friday morning was to pack up the car as much as possible, haul it to Schenectady, NY, and then head to Albany for our apartment viewings. It was going to be a draining day and Serio's had steak on sale, so we had that for dinner. Claire DS brought over a bottle of wine and we had steak, roasted mushrooms and greenbeans, and some GF cornbread. Preparation was very simple, just some searing of the steak, roasting the vegetables at 450 degrees for 20 minutes, and the cornbread was a mix. It was mighty delish!

Homemade Pasta Sauce

This is a very quick, inexpensive, healthy and delicious recipe.

Ingredients:
1/2 Onion
1 Tomato
2 Cloves of Garlic
Italian Seasoning
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil
1 Bay leaf

Chop the onion and tomato into tiny cubes. First, saute the onions along with the garlic in a generous amount of olive oil so they can caramelize. Once everything looks a nice golden colour, it is time to add the diced tomato.

I then sprinkled in the salt, pepper and Italian seasoning and stirred before covering the pot and letting it sit for about 5 minutes. Once uncovered, I stirred until the water in the mixture had evaporated enough to leave the proper consistency.

Once you've boiled and strained your pasta, pour the sauce over and enjoy!

Strawberries and Cream Cheese Dip

After making carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, I still had quite a bit of cream cheese left. As I do not normally eat anything with cream cheese on it, I decided I would make a delicious dip to eat with my strawberries this morning. The recipe was the same as that of the cream cheese (see the post on carrot cake cupcakes), except I did not add butter and instead added small amounts of milk until the desired consistency was obtained. As there is no standard to this dip, you can have it as thick or liquidy as you would like based on the milk you add - so, add it slowly, mix, and add again if necessary.

It turned out to be quite good, but like cheesecake and other rich desserts, it's good in small doses but can get a little nauseating if you eat too much.

Red Bell Pepper Omelette

This was a little something I put together off the top of my head. I wouldn't say it is a culinary masterpiece, but it certainly did taste delicious and was very quick and easy to make. I will list the ingredients I used in my own omelette, but like any omelette, it can be customized to your liking with whatever your heart desires. Another thing to note is that I did not measure out how much of each ingredient I added. The key is to add as much as you are happy to eat and to be sure there is enough egg to hold the ingredients in place.

Ingredients:

Red Bell pepper

Eggs

Garlic

Onion

Olive Oil

Parsley

Salt

Pepper

Sauté the onions, garlic and red bell pepper in olive oil until you see the onions turn a golden brown. You can do this at medium heat.

The next step is to beat the eggs and add some salt and pepper to that mixture. Once you pour the eggs over, add the parsley over the top and lower the heat and let everything sit until you notice the eggs starting to cook on top. At that point, you can start folding from the outer part inward.

Flip your folded omelette over, to cook the other side, and voila! Done.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

I found this recipe in a cupcake book, so I thought I'd give it a try. I did make a modification to the recipe by reducing the amount of sugar. It is more bread-like than cupcake-like due to this alteration, so it is a matter of preference. The cream cheese frosting is quite sweet, so it compensates for the lack of sweetness in the cakes.

Ingredients You will need are as follows:

1 cup Flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

2 eggs

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar (I skipped this one)

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 1/2 cup grated carrots

1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional in case of food allergies!)

For the cream cheese frosting:

1/4 cup butter

4 oz cream cheese

1 cup confectioners sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

The first step is to mix the dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately. (Brown sugar is mixed with wet).

I grated my own carrot as opposed to buying the pre-cut carrots. I just found that the shredded carrot at the supermarket was much to thick for baking purposes. This was also a cheaper option, so it worked out in more ways than one!

Once the dry mix and wet mix are stirred together, add the carrots and walnuts.

This batter doesn't rise very much in the oven, so you can fill it up almost to the brim. I used a silicon baking tray and I think it worked quite nicely. The benefit to silicon cookware is that it cooks everything very evenly and doesn't crisp the outside like metal cookware does. I used baking spray to keep the cupcakes from sticking.I baked the cupcakes at 350º F for 25 minutes, and they came out lovely.

Mix the frosting ingredients. Make sure you let the cream cheese and butter reach room temperature, because it makes for an ideal texture for mixing. Don't heat the butter to soften it! This will ruin the texture and make everything runny and hot - not particularly appealing.
Once out of the oven, I placed the cakes on a cooling rack. It isn't particularly good to let the cupcakes cool inside the cooking tray because they collect moisture and can become a bit soggy. Luckily, the silicon doesn't get too hot, so it is easy to pop out the cupcakes without getting burned.

I used a serrated knife to cut the cupcakes along the top in order to put some frosting in the center. That's pretty much it. It is very easy and doesn't take long.

Leftovers for Breakfast

Yesterday was a very long day and in the business of it all, we collapsed when we got home and missed dinner. This morning Honey wanted to use up what was left in the kitchen and so we had scrambled eggs, steamed spinach, and toasted cornbread. The eggs were leftover from bread making last week, the spinach from a salad, and the cornbread from a dinner two nights ago. Claire DS also joined us, since she's staying with us for a few days.

Tegan also managed to grab a piece. Silly kitten.