We've had a friend from New Zealand visiting us for the past couple of weeks. I wanted to make a pavlova for him while he was here since I never acutally got a chance to try one while I was over there. And, because I'm me, I wanted to try a new flavour combination that I hadn't done before.

I actually ended up making two differen pavlovas in the end. This dried apricot one and a somewhat simpler ginger-lemon curd one. They were both excellent and I keep going back and forth on which one I liked best.

This one was definitely the richer of the two. While the lemon curd in the first recipe used a mix of whole eggs and egg yolks with just a bit of butter, this one uses all egg yolks and the maximum possible amout of butter that they will allow you to emulsify before the whole thing breaks. It's also meant to include a sizeable quantity of both thickened cream and crème fra&icric;che, but I decided to swap those out for some plain Greek yogurt.

I think that the yogurt worked quite well! It still gave it a nice tartness and creaminess without quite as much chance of causing a major coronary event.

Dried Apricot Pavlova

Slightly adapted from Delicious.com.au

Ingredients

Meringue

• 4 large egg whites
• 1 tsp. lemon juice (or 1 Tbsp. verjuice)
• 200g sugar
• 1 Tbsp. cornstarch (cornflour)

Curd

• 8 large egg yolks
• 140g sugar
• 180g unsalted butter
• 1 Tbsp. lemon juice

Other Toppings

• 225g dried apricots, divided
• 200mL verjuice, divided
• 1/2 Tbsp. honey
• 1 sprig rosemary¹
• ~1 c. plain Greek yogurt
• 1/4 c. sliced almonds, toasted

Directions

Meringue

1. Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F) and line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.
2. Whisk egg whites with lemon juice at gradually increasing speed until foamy.
3. Add the sugar, 1 Tbsp. at a time, while continuing to whisk at high speed until all sugar has been used.
4. Add the cornstarch and continue whisking until stiff peaks form. Do not overmix.
5. Scoop the meringue out onto the prepared baking sheet and shape into a large cyinder or dome.²
6. Place the meringue in the oven, immediately turn the temperature down to 120°C (250°F), and bake for 1 hour.
7. Turn oven off and leave meringue in warm oven to cool for at least 2 hours or as long as overnight.

Apricot Purée

1. Combine 100g of apricots and 100mL of the verjuice and bring to a simmer over medium heat.
2. Cook for 3-4 minutes, then remove from heat, cover, and set aside to steep for 10-15 minutes.
3. Use an immersion blender or food processor to purée until smooth.

Apricot Curd

1. Combine egg yolks and sugar and cook over low heat, whisking constantly, for 15-20 minutes.
2. Begin adding butter, 1 Tbsp. at a time, while continuing to cook over low heat and whisk constantly.
3. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice and apricot purée.

Poached Apricots

1. Combine remaining 125g apricots with remaining 100mL verjuice and 1/3 c. of water.
2. Cook over medium heat for 3-4 minutes.
3. With a slotted spoon or spider, transfer apricots to a bowl and set aside.
4. Add honey and rosemary to the liquid left in the pot and bring to a boil.
5. Boil for 4-5 minutes, then remove from heat and pour over the apricots.

Assembly

1. Once everything is cool, top the pavolva with the Greek yogurt followed by the apricot curd. (Or do it the other way round and put the curd on first if you prefer.)
2. Add the poached apricots on top and then drizzle with the syrup.
3. Sprinkle with toasted almonds and serve.

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¹ I didn't have any fresh rosemary, so I just used a generous pinch of some that I'd dried myself the last time I did have fresh rosemary. ^Back
2 I recently learned that pavlovas are not actually supposed to have a hollow in the centre to hold all the toppings. They sometimes end up that way because they're slighly underbaked or because they can't support the weight of the toppings that have been added, but they are not (typically) actually meant to be like that. This was news to me as I've been deliberately making bowl-shaped pavs for years now! I guess maybe next time I can give the traditional shape a try. (Although TF is somewhat dubious about the traditional shape and its ability to hold all the tasty toppings.) ^Back

I don't usually bother writing up Hello Fresh recipes anymore, since so many of them are variations on stuff we've already cooked, but this one was a huge hit, including with our New Zealish guest.

Blueberry Chicken Salad

Hello Fresh

Ingredients

• 56g sliced almonds
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 tbsp whole grain mustard
• 4 tbsp blueberry jam
• 2 tsp garlic salt
• 4 large chicken breasts
• 227g spring mix
• 2 gala apples, cut into 1cm cubes

Directions

1. Whisk together olive oil, vinegar, jam, mustard, and 1 tbsp water. Add salt and pepper to taste and buffer.
2. Heat a large pan over medium-low heat. Add almonds, sugar, 1 tbsp water, and a pinch of salt.
3. Cook, stirring often, until almonds are lightly browned and coated with sugar, 3-4 minutes. Remove and buffer on a plate.
4. Increase heat to medium. Add 1 tbsp oil and chicken. Season with pepper and garlic salt.
5. Cook until golden brown on both sides and cooked through (165°F). Remove from heat.
6. Toss spring mix and apples with half the dressing.
7. Thinly slice chicken. Serve salad topped with chicken, almonds, and remaining dressing.

After making a large batch of stew, we needed more vegetables to go with the leftovers. Symbol located this in Vegetable of the Day and it was delicious! Prep was a bit tedious simply because we had a huge number of tiny carrots, so peeling them took forever, but I think it would go a lot faster with regular-sized carrots, and there's no arguing with the results - everyone loved them.

Photo goes here.

Honey-Ginger Roasted Carrots

From Vegetable of the Day by Kate McMillan (p. 66)

Ingredients

• 500g carrots or "baby carrots"
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp finely chopped candied ginger
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tbsp coarsely chopped fresh mint
• 2 tsp fresh lemon juice

Directions

1. Peel the carrots and cut them into ~5cm lengths. Halve or quarter the thicker segments to produce a roughly uniform carrot size. If using pre-peeled "baby carrots", you can ues them as-is.
2. Melt the butter in a large bowl.
3. Whisk in the honey, ginger, salt and pepper, and mint.
4. Add the carrots and toss until well coated.
5. Arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet and cook at 400°F until fork-tender, 40-45 minutes.
6. Stir in lemon juice, optionally garnish with additional mint, and serve.

Our mint has gone a bit crazy, so I'm always happy for recipes that promise to use a bit up. I also had a carton of whipping cream in the fridge that expired a few days ago and some leftover Bahamanian sweet pastry. Now, of course, technically this tart is meant to be made with what I think of as "regular" sweet shortcrust. But I wasn't about to go making yet another batch of pastry dough when I still had a buch of other dough in the fridge. So I figured I'd just give it a try with the extra sweet pastry.

I think the sugar cookie-like crust works quite well with the minty ganache filling! I mean, I'm sure the recommended crust would also be good. (And I think some sort of chocolate crust might also be quite nice.) But I'm certainly not complaining about how this version turned out!

The original recipe calls for using 1 1/2 c. of cream, 340g of chocolate, 10 sprigs of mint, and 2 Tbsp. of corn syrup in the filling. It also calls for making it in either a 35x11.5cm (13.75x4.5") rectangular or 24cm (9.5") round loose-bottomed tart tin. I didn't want to mess around with the super-hard-to-handle Bahamanian pastry in a loose-bottomed tin, so I decided to use my 9" deep dish pie plate instead. Then, in order to both accommodate the deep dish and to use up more cream and mint, I bumped up all the quantities in the filling except for the corn syrup. I reasoned that since the Bahamanian pastry was so much sweeter than a "regular" sweet shortcrust, it made sense to dail back the sweetness of the filling a bit. If I'd been making this with a less sweet pastry, I might've considered adding another 2-3 tsp. of corn syrup along with the chocolate.

Photo goes here.

Fresh Mint and Chocolate Tart

Slightly adapted from Dessert of the Day by Kim Laidlaw

Ingredients

• 1/4 batch Bahamanian sweet pastry or 1 crust worth of another pastry of your choice
• 2 c. of heavy (35%) cream
• 12 sprigs fresh mint
• 450g dark chocolate
• 2-3 Tbsp. corn syrup
• extra mint leaves, for garnish

Directions

1. Roll out the pastry and use it to line a 23cm (9") deep dish pie plate (or equivalent volume tart tin).
2. Chill for 20-30 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, scald the cream. Get it very hot, but stop just shy of boiling.
4. Add the mint to the cream and set aside to steep for 20-30 minutes.
5. Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F), line pie shell with baking paper, and fill with pie weights.
6. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for 15-20 minutes.
7. Meanwhile, strain the mint from the cream and discard.
8. Add the chocolate and corn syrup to the infused cream.
9. Gently heat the cream mixture, stirring, until chocolate is melted and fully combined.
10. Remove from heat and set aside to cool for 20-30 minutes.
11. Remove baking paper and pie weights and continue baking for 5 minutes longer.
12. Remove from oven and set on wire rack to cool.
13. Once crust has cooled, pour in the ganache.
14. Transfer to fridge and chill until set (~1 hour).
15. Garnish with extra mint leaves, cut into wedges, and serve.

We're getting ready to go away and I'm trying to use up the last few things in the fridge.

In theory you're supposed to roast a butternut squash fresh for this recipe. In practice I had half a roasted kabocha squash and some butternut squash salad left over from earlier recipes, so I just tossed the kale into that and roasted it for a few minutes to heat everything through.

The bunch of kale that they sent in our last produce basket was a little skimpy, so this didn't end up with nearly as much kale as it was supposed to have. And there was probably a bit too much squash. But I still think it worked out alright. And, more importantly, it let us use up some squash, kale, and eggs before going away. So, all-in-all, great success!

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Quinoa, Squash, and Kale Breakfast Bowls

Slightly adapted from The Breakfast Bible by Kate McMillan

Ingredients

• 1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 c. quinoa
• 2 c. water or vegetable stock
• 1/2 tsp. dried minced garlic (optional)
• 1 bunch kale, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1-2 tsp. butter or bacon grease or olive oil
• 4 large eggs
• 2-3 tsp. Laoganma (老干妈)¹

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 220°C (425°F).
2. Toss the squash with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and spread out on a rimmed baking sheet.
3. Roast at 220°C (425°F) for ~20 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, combine the quinoa, water/stock, and dried garlic (if using) and bring to a boil.
5. Reduce heat and simmer for 20-25 minutes.
6. Once squash is almost tender, add the kale and garlic and return to oven until heated through (5-8 minutes).
7. Meanwhile, melt the butter/grease/oil over medium heat.
8. Add the eggs, season with salt and pepper, cover, and cook until they reach desired doneness. (Eggs may also be hard or soft boiled or poached.)
9. Divide the quinoa amoung four bowls.
10. Top each bowl with ~1/4 of the squash-kale mixture.
11. Top each bowl and an egg.
12. Add some Laoganma (or other spicy element) and serve!

¹ Alternatively, 1/4 tsp. of chile flakes, gochugaru, and/or chili oil per bowl (1 tsp. total) would probably also work well. The original recipe doesn't call for anything spicy, but I think it's better with a bit of a kick. ^Back

This is a recipe for a delicious Bahamanian fresh coconut pie. The filling is pretty much pure coconut (and sugar). None of this coconut-flavoured custard and whipped cream nonsense. I mean, not that I don't also love coconut cream pie. But this Caribbean-style fresh coconut pie is on a whole 'nother level!

The filling is very simple: just coconut, water, sugar, and vanilla. It gets cooked and poured into an unbaked pie shell. It's then meant to be topped with a lattice crust. And that does sound lovely. Unfortunately, it's also meant to use the special Bahamanian sweet pastry, which I did make, but was having a lot of difficulty working with. After many attempts at rolling it out and making my pie shell, I finally settled on using it as a press-in crust for the bottom and then very carefully dropping a solid sheet of pastry over top for the upper crust. The top crust ended up tearing in half, so the finished pie had a big split down the centre, but it still baked up fine and was definitely easier than trying to mess about with a lattice top.

Anyway, despite my pastry fumbling, the pie turned out very nicely! Everyone seemed to like it and it definitely packs a much more concentrated coconut punch than a coconut cream pie.

Photo goes here.

Fresh Coconut Pie

From Mom's Bahamanian cookbook

Ingredients

• 2 c. grated fresh coconut
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 1/2 c. water
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 recipe Bahamanian sweet pastry

Directions

1. Combine coconut, sugar, and water and bring to a boil over medium heat.
2. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, until thickened (~30 minutes).
3. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla, and set aside to cool.
4. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and roll out half the pastry (1/4 of the amount the recipe makes) and use it to line a 23cm (9") pie plate.
5. Pour the filling into the uncooked pie shell.
6. Roll out the remaining portion of pastry and either place it on top of the filled pie or cut it into strips and weave a lattice top over the pie.
7. Crimp the edges to seal.
8. Bake at 180°C (350°F) until filling is set and pastry is cooked through and well-browned (30-45 minutes).

I've now tried all of the smoothie bowl recipes from the Breakfast Bible, so I decided to start working my way through some of the breakfast toast recipes. I'd already done the avocado toast and the smoked salmon toast, but that still left the cucumber toast and this squash one.

I'd never actually had kabocha squash before (although I have noticed them becoming increasingly popular here over the past few years). They look similar to a buttercup squash, but apparently have a somewhat lower moisture content.

The flavour was quite nice. Especially when mixed with sautéed onion, garlic, and pepper flakes! And the relatively dry flesh made for a good, stiff-but-spreadable consistency that didn't make the toast heavy or soggy. That said, I think it would probably still be okay with a higher moisture squash; it'd just be a bit wetter.

The recipe called for topping the toasts with either shichimi togarashi or chili oil. I probably could've made some shichimi togarashi, but I got mixed up and was thinking that shichimi togarashi referred to special Japanese hot pepper flakes/chiffonade rather than a spice blend. But, since chili oil was suggested as an option, I decided that Laoganma (老干妈) would also be in the right vein. So we elected to top our toasts with everyone's favourite salty, oily, spicy goodness.

The Kidlet wasn't really a fan of these toasts, but TF and I both enjoyed them a lot! The squash and goat cheese work very well together. And, of course, you can't really go wrong with Laoganma!

We used a few thin slices of English muffin bread as the base for our toasts, but pretty much any bread would work. The recipe actually call for whole wheat bread, but I wasn't about to make a whole new loaf just for this recipe. Just use what you have on hand. The exact type of bread isn't super critical to the recipe.

Photo goes here.

Squash Toast

Slightly adapted from The Breakfast Bible by Kate McMillan

Ingredients

• 1/2 kabocha squash
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. olive oil, divided
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced (optional)
• 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
• 125g soft unripened goat cheese
• 4 slices bread, toasted
• 1/4 c. pepitas (hulled pumpkin seeds), toasted
• 2 tsp. Laoganma (老干妈) or shichimi togarashi

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
2. Cut the squash in half¹, scoop out the seeds and guts², and brush it with 1-2 tsp. of the olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
3. Roast the squash at 200°C (400°F) until tender (30-45 minutes).
4. Scoop the flesh out of the skin and mash it. (Discard the skin.)
5. Heat the remaining oil over medium heat.
6. Add the onion and cook for 4-5 minutes.
7. Add the garlic (if using) and pepper flakes and cook for another minute or so.
8. Add the mashed squash and cook, stirring, until well-mixed and heated through.
9. Adjust seasoning to taste.
10. Spread the cheese over the toasts.
11. Spread a layer of squash over the cheese.
12. Top each toast with ~1 Tbsp. of pepitas and ~1/2 tsp. Laoganma and serve.

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¹ You will only need half of the squash for this recipe, but I recommend roasting both pieces and simply saving one half for another use (or making a double batch of toasts). ^Back
2 Either discard the seeds or clean them off, season them, and roast them like pumpkin seeds. ^Back