Al fresco autumn

The perfect autumn snack would be jewel-like figs drizzled with honey and served with manchego cheese and crusty bread.

Serve outdoors on an unseasonably warm day.

Heaven.

My DIY summer berry pavlova

I don't usually do food on Bromeliad, but this thing was so pretty it sort of qualifies as home decor.

This recipe comes from House Beautiful and is probably my first ever made-straight-from-a-magazine recipe, especially from a hoity toity one like HB.

I made a few modifications from Alex Hitz's recipe to bring it down to the level of mere mortals.

The meringue

6 egg whites, at room temperature
2 cups superfine sugar (Note: I used regular sugar. Just expect to whip forever.)
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
¼ teaspoon salt

Whip the meringue until it's the consistency of marshmallow fluff.

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Take three cookie sheets and line each with parchment paper. Using a cake pan, trace a 7-inch circle on each sheet. (The original recipe called for two 9-inch circles but I wanted mine to stack higher.)

Use a spatula to create three meringue patties. Keep the thickness as uniform as possible.

From Alex:  Lower the oven to 200 degrees, and bake the meringues for 1½ hours. Turn the oven off, but leave the meringues in the oven overnight. Do not open the oven door until the next morning.

From me: This totally worked.

The filling

The recipe next calls for making stewed fruit. To be honest, the whole thing was so sweet, I don't think you need to stew the fruit. Also, having extra fruit to cut the sweetness would be nice. So, I would say you need five or six cups of fresh berries like strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. Slice most of the strawberries. Leave a few whole for the top of the pavlova.

The last step is making whipped cream. Alex's recipe calls for 1 cup of heavy cream, 2 tablespoons sugar and 1 tablespoon good bourbon. I had no bourbon so can't comment on that but definitely double the whipped cream. You need the mortar to hold this thing together. Plus, when can you ever have too much whipped cream?

Tip: Put your bowl and beaters in the freezer for 10 minutes before making the whipped cream.

Assemble with a layer of meringue, a layer of whipped cream and a layer of fruit. Embellish with fresh mint.

There you go.  If any Aussies tell you this is not a real pavlova, you can inform them they did not invent the pavlova; kiwis did. This will quiet them for 30 seconds.

You can make the meringues up to three days ahead. Everything else should be assembled just before eating.

It's gluten free and an absolute sugar bomb.

Fresh figs

Growing up in Ohio, I associated figs with Fig Newtons. Never had a fresh one until I was almost 30. Sometimes I wonder how many other times I'm being ripped off in life and just don't know any better.

These figs came from Italian friends on Long Island, wrapped in their own leaves. We ate them without washing or debugging. Sweet as strawberries. Pure heaven.

I highly recommend friendship with Italians.

Summer salad and the happy corn song

Yesterday, as I made my way through the cafeteria line and piled two, three, four ears of corn on my tray, I found myself singing, "Corn is great. Corn makes me happy. Happy happy happy hap-peeee."

Unfortunately, I was flanked by Koreans, who don't get as excited about corn on the cob as a Midwesterner does. And I was singing out loud.

One of my favorite things to do with hap-peeee corn is to slice off the extra into a salad, into which I also dump beets, blue cheese, sometimes sunflower seeds, fresh herbs, raisins, mozzarella or bits of chicken. Then I spend the next thirty minutes chewing.

Happy happy happpeeee.

Tomato love

Aren't ugly tomatoes beautiful? Ugliness - a sure sign they came out of the ground, not some hydroponics lab. Chubby, bumpy, dimpled, misshapen and retaining water - looks bad on you, looks great on them.


In this great city, you can get organic pizza delivered to you in Central Park. But you cannot get a decent tomato. Farmer's Markets don't cut it. They weigh out tomatoes like gold bullion.

Tomatoes should be purchased from the side of the road in a paper sack and cost no more than $3 for the whole bag. Or they should come from your elderly friend Ruby in Long Island, as these were.

How to make the easiest vanilla ice cream ever

Those of you who read this blog on a regular basis know that one thing it is not is a food blog. (It's more of a frugal home design/budget travel/Brooklyn neighborhood/squirrel stalking/oh look at the pretty (a. flower b. weed c. miscellaneous weird thing) I just noticed blog.)

However, this recipe is so easy even I can do it. In fact I make a batch of ice cream two or three times a week. It takes five minutes to mix and about 15 minutes to freeze.

Ingredients

1 egg
1/2 to 2/3 cups sugar
3 cups milk
Dash of vanilla extract



Whiz the egg in a blender until fluffy. Add the sugar and whiz again. Add the milk and vanilla and whiz for about a minute.

Pour the mix into an ice cream maker. We have a basic one with a cannister that stays in the freezer and an easy hand crank. (Found it at thrift store for $8 last year. Have made approximately $2,000 worth of ice cream in it already.) You turn the crank once every few minutes, and the ice cream is done in about 15 minutes.

For variety, you can add fresh mint during the blending phase and chocolate chips after the ice cream is almost frozen.