M Weekend!

Saturday I seemed to spend hours on the road and everywhere I headed seemed to begin with M so I decided it was to be named M weekend. Monbulk to Morwell to Mirboo North then on to our Fish Creek property to do lots of Mowing. Back home on Sunday and continued the little mind game with Meringue  for my sons Many happy returns lunch. Sometimes I think I am mentally stuck in my childhood state! Anyway a last minute decision to have a BBQ lunch because it was such a sensational spring day went down well.

On my drive home from Fishy I was trying to work out what I could do for a birthday cake as we don’t have a family sized oven at the moment. My son loves pavlova and we have had several over the years as his special day cake. It struck me that I could do mini-pavs in the little muffin trays I bought that fit into my ‘toy oven’. With a plan in mind to have mini pavlovas served with cream, strawberries, kiwi fruit and a strawberry coulis type sauce, I also bought some ready-made brandy snaps to crunch a couple up as a nice little crunchy garnish and serve sprinkled over the top of the little pavs.

My favourite pavlova recipe

4 Egg whites

1 Cup of sugar (castor sugar speeds process up a bit)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 teaspoon white vinegar

Beat egg whites until firm but  still soft. Slowly add the sugar a little at a time and beat until dissolved. When sugar dissolved and mix is glossy and thick stir through vanilla and vinegar. Done, use as needed.

I spooned some mix into the muffin tins

Cooked in the ‘toy oven’ set on approx 160 for 15-20 minutes. Are a little darker than normal but don’t think that matters.

I changed my mind about crunching up the brandy snaps and decided to serve the little pavlovas in a brandy basket topped with the cream and fruit. I blitzed a few strawberries with the Bamix stick mixer with some icing sugar added (about a teaspoon) to make a nice little drizzle sauce.

Very happy with that, and when you cut into it the combination of soft meringue, crunchy brandy snap, sweet fruit and rich cream was beautiful. Took less than 1/2 an hour to make and looked pretty impressive too.

With this being our first outside meal for the season we set up the table under the mulberry tree and I noticed the first leaves were showing.

Energy unfolding!

Sampled some Tomato pickles (R) and tamarillo chutney (L) my daughter made with lunch. Loved the tomato pickles but thought the tamarillo chutney although very nice was just a bit too sweet to go with normal bbq. I thought it would be great to use as a glaze on pork chops then serve a little on the side as well.

My reference to our ‘toy oven’ is actually a little Sunbeam bench top Bake and grill oven and it is sensational. Cost about $80.00 and it does everything a conventional oven does, just in small doses!I

I am really looking forward to this week as I’ve taken time off work and will make the most of doing what I really enjoy!