Chocolate Pavlova with Blood Orange Cream

Chocolate Pavlova with Blood Orange Cream
I made you a dessert. A magnificent dessert. A dessert with chocolate and cream and tropical fruit. A dessert that will make your heart fill with joy and your mouth cry out for more. A dessert that is impressive to behold yet surprisingly simple to prepare. A dessert that is truly worthy of a holiday meant for love. ♥
You’re welcome.Chocolate Pavlova with Blood Orange Cream
If you’ve never had the pleasure of enjoying a Pavlova before, you’re in for a real treat. This meringue based dessert boasts an airy crisp crust and a chewy, almost marshmallow like center. It’s topped with whipped cream- I infused mine with a bit of fresh squeezed blood orange juice- and piled high with fresh fruits and berries. Pavlova is the perfect dessert to make for the one you love…or to ask the one you love to make for you. It does take a bit of time to prepare because the meringue needs to cook at a low temperature for about an hour and then cool slowly for another hour. But the hands on time is pretty minimal. And I promise…it is totally worth it.

Whipped egg whites and cocoa
Meet fresh fruit
All together nowTAW95417

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Maple Biscuits- Valentine’s Day Breakfast

Maple Biscuits
Valentine’s Day is a stay at home holiday around here. We’re not dress up and go out to a fancy restaurant kind of people anyway, and the thought of trudging out on Valentine’s Day when the restaurants are all packed and the menu prices are sky high is frankly quite unappealing. Besides, I like to cook and Tim likes to eat what I cook… so it’s a win win for everyone. But that doesn’t mean I spend all day preparing a five course meal. Just the opposite in fact. Our Valentine’s Day meal is usually a simple affair. It’s more about favorite foods than fancy foods. This approach means that the Valentine’s Day meal really can last all day. I’m talking breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. Okay, maybe lunch is only a sandwich cut into a heart shape or soup with a cute note taped to the lid, but it still counts in my book. Valentine’s Day breakfast is the real deal though. Homemade biscuits, crispy bacon, fluffy eggs, and fresh melon! Maple Biscuits
The best part of this Valentine’s day breakfast is how little time it took to make something that tastes sooo good. I probably only spent a total of 25 minutes on this meal and that includes the five to ten minutes it took me to dig out my heart shaped cookie cutters from the box I stashed them in last year.

First I made these simple maple biscuits. They would have tasted just as scrumptious round or square, but to make them Valentine’s Day appropriate I used a heart shaped cookie cutter.
I always use the same recipe for “Basic Rolled Biscuits” from my tattered and stained copy of the Joy of Cooking. Depending on how I want the biscuits to taste, or what I am serving them with, I add or change the ingredients as needed. This time I was going for a slightly sweet flavor so I substituted out a 1/4 cup of milk for the same amount of maple syrup. The syrup gave the dough a faint brownish hue and when I pulled them out of the oven they had deepened to the most gorgeous golden brown color. Maple Biscuits
You can certainly eat these sweet feathery biscuits on their own. I couldn’t resist the aroma of maple mixed with butter and I bit into one straight out of the oven, burning the tips of my fingers in the process. As I took a bite the soft, buttery dough melted in my mouth and the complex sweetness that only comes from real maple syrup made my taste buds step up and take notice. I could have easily consumed them all this way, leaning against the counter and licking my scorched fingers, but since this was supposed to be a meal for two I somehow summoned up enough self control to resist scarfing down the entire batch. Instead I sliced the biscuits in half and layered them with a few slabs of crispy bacon and a spoonful of scrambled eggs.
I topped them with the second half of the biscuit and there you have it- a Valentine’s Day breakfast sandwich!Maple Biscuits
We ate ours with heart shaped melon and fresh OJ…mmmm.
Maple Biscuits

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Sweet Potato and Almond Croquettes

Sweet Potato and Almond Croquettes
I could eat sweet potatoes everyday. I could eat them baked, mashed, boiled, or fried. I could eat them drizzled with honey, topped with sausage, or baked into bread. As far as I am concerned sweet potatoes are the perfect food. They’re healthy, they’re tasty, and they can be prepared in an infinite number of ways. My default sweet potato recipe is to cube them, toss with some olive oil, salt, cayenne, a pinch of rosemary and roast until soft in the middle and crisp on the outside. These sweet potato croquettes are kind of like a more sophisticated, more refined, version of this dish. Soft, pillowy mashed spuds are mixed with goodies like scallions and ground almonds then rolled into balls and dipped in crunchy panko crumbs. The best part? There’s cheese!Sweet Potato and Almond Croquettes Traditionally potato croquettes are fried. I considered taking this route, I really did. I figured if there was was ever a time to eat fried foods, the week of the Super Bowl was it.  In the end though, I couldn’t do it. Partly because I felt guilty about the prospect of vilifying these healthy little potato balls by subjecting them to a hot oil bath, but mostly because it just seemed like too much work. And too much mess, and too much potential for failure, and burning myself. So I baked them instead…and they were wonderful!

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