Richard’s favourite Christmas dessert is a massive. sloppy meringue covered with loads of cream and fresh fruit. Pavlova, roulade…anything of the like, and he goes crazy for it. I finally got around to attempting meringues this week as a holiday treat ‘just for him’

{20. 12.11 text message conversation}

Farmer: Did you make them yet?

Me: Make what? I am whipping the meringues right now, can’t talk

Farmer: Yes, meringues

Me: Yes, meringues! Speak tonite

Farmer: Did they turn out good?

Me: You can try one tonite *nearly drops phone into bowl of stiff peaks of egg whites*

Farmer: Right so x *back to feeding cattle*

Me: x

They worked. A few cracks, but oh… so… softly-crunchy-melt-in-your-mouth-delicious.
He told me that if that is all he got for Christmas, he’d be one satisfied farmer.

Here’s the recipe. Very simple….just don’t overwhip and if you have a fan oven start at 140 and turn down to 130.

Farmer’s Meringue

Makes 4 Large “Farmer Size” or 8 Small Meringue Nests

2 Large eggs

4 oz/110 g caster (superfine) sugar

Preheat oven to 300F/150C /Gas Mark 2

Place the egg whites in a large bowl and, using an electric hand whisk on a low speed, begin whisking. Continue for about

2 minutes, until the whites are foamy, then switch the speed to medium and carry on whisking for 1 more minute.

Now turn the speed to high and continue whisking until the egg whites reach the stiff-peak stage.

Next, whisk the sugar in on fast speed, a little at a time (about a dessertspoon), until you have a stiff and glossy mixture.

Spoon 8 heaped dessertspoons of the mixture on to your baking sheet lined with parchment paper, spacing them evenly.

Then, using the back of the spoon or a small palette knife, hollow out the centres.

Don’t worry if they are not all the same shape – random and rocky is just right.

Next, place the baking sheet on the centre shelf of the oven, immediately reduce the heat to gas mark 1, 275°F (140°C) and leave them for 30 minutes.

After that, turn the oven off and leave the meringues to dry out in the warmth of the oven until it is completely cold (usually about 4 hours).

Serve topped with cream and fresh fruit or berries!

The winner of the beautiful book, A Taste of Cork, is Annetje Roodenburg!  Congratulations Annetje and thanks again to everyone else who left a lovely comment here. Annetje, please email me at imen.producer@ireland.com with your mailing/postal address.

Nollaig Shona Duit,

Imen

Photos and Styling by Imen McDonnell 2011 {Shot with Loftus lens Hipstamatic}

Tags: A Taste of Cork, American, christmas, farmer, Farming, food, foodie, holiday, I Married An Irish Farmer, Imen McDonnell, ireland, Irish, Irish food photography, irish foodies, Martha Stewart, meringue, Nollaig Shona Duit, pavlova, roulade

Twas two weeks before Christmas

And all through the house

Mommy was madly baking cookies

With her child and spouse…

I really look forward to the holidays each year as it gives me the perfect excuse to inject a little bit of American tradition into our ever consuming Irish country life. As a child, I grew up making delicious cookies and candies with family and friends during the holiday season. Pfeffernüsse, Snowballs, Peanut Butter Kisses, Spritz, Snickerdoodles, Peanut Brittle, all so yummy. But my all-time favorite Christmas cookies have always been the sugar cutouts. It was always so exciting to be able to get to roll out the dough, use the cookie cutters and then frost and decorate each of our masterpieces.

Over the years, I have tried many recipes for these simple sugar cookies and always go back to the one that we always used at home. It calls for sour cream, which makes it more cake-like and creamy. It is absolutely necessary to leave the dough in the fridge overnight or it will become too soft when rolling and cutting. Be sure and use loads of flour on your rolling surface as well to prevent the dough from sticking.

This year I drizzled Royal Icing instead of using a buttercream frosting, both are gorgeous tasting, but the Royal Icing is perhaps more decorative.

I thought it would be fun to gather a bunch of candy cane cookies,place them in mini milk pails tied with a festive red tag and ribbon bow. They make lovely little hostess gifts.

Nollaig Shona Duit,

Imen

Photo by Imen McDonnell, assisted by Master Geoffrey McDonnell.

Pail from IKEA, Ribbon by American Craft Elements Co. Tags from local craft shop.

Tags: candy canes, christmas, cookies, farm, Farming, food, foodie, holiday, Imen McDonnell, ireland, MArried and Irish Farmer

Here I go writing about food again, but how can I resist when Thanksgiving is right around the corner? I have always had an affinity for Thanksgiving.  It may just possibly be my most favorite American holiday. We had the same lovely tradition for so many years of traveling to my grandmother’s house where all of my wonderful extended family would come together on a (usually) pretty snowy day and celebrate with loads of turkey and all the trimmings. The best bit of it all? The PUMPKIN PIE of course!

Now, as far as I can tell, pumpkin pie would not be something that the Irish necessarily love…even though the famed Jack-O-Lantern has it’s roots in Irish lore, the pumpkin does not get the same celebrity status as in the USA.  I’ll never forget the time when Richard and I were still dating and I was visiting Ireland during Thanksgiving. I decided on a whim that I would make Thanksgiving dinner for his whole family. I mean you can’t NOT celebrate Thanksgiving, right? I brought over pumpkin and cranberry and other pantry items to be on the safe side..along with my trusty Martha Stewart recipes that I had chosen for that year. We used a turkey from the farm (don’t ask the details about that) which was lovely and I began making this extravagant meal that I thought everyone would surely love and appreciate. Well okay, maybe I just wanted them to love and appreciate ME.

So. The first thing that went wrong was that I was oblivious to the fact that there would be differences in oven temperatures. Here, we use celsius, not fahrenheit so I had to do some major conversions which drove me a bit mad. Then, the same with the measurements! Everything is in metric so instead of cups I had to work in mls and grams. The last time I used grams for anything I cannot discuss here, but let’s just say it was a long time ago so as you can imagine converting ounces to grams to mls to cups and back again completely did my head in.  Still, somehow I sorted it out and made a gorgeous meal for everyone.

We sat down in the formal dining room and started to eat. I was happily taking in all the compliments and actually feeling a little chuffed when I was posed with the question of “So, Imen, is Thanksgiving a Jewish holiday?”.  Huh?  I told myself not to giggle. I answered eloquently, explaining the history of Thanksgiving (Charlie Brown style, of course) that no,  it was not Jewish, but that Jewish people do, in actual fact, observe the holiday with all the other Americans. They were fascinated and nearly ate every last morsel that I had prepared. Success!

But then came dessert. The famous pumpkin pie. I wish I had videotaped the faces on everyone as they took their first bite of this yummy sweet/savory delicacy that we love so dearly in the USA.  Surprise. Delight. Terror. No expression just fast gobbling. Sheer happiness (me).  And then, out of the blue, a quote uttered by Grandma McDonnell, “Tis Different”.  A phrase which I learned much later had meant “It’s Rotten”.  I find this quite humorous and touching. She actually thought it tasted rotten, but ate it all and never said a bad word to me.

Oh well, it’s still my favorite. And Richard and Geoffrey love it too. (Really!)

Mind Yourself,

Imen

Photo courtesy of Food Network

Tags: family, farm, holiday, ireland, Martha Stewart, Pie, Pumpkin, snow, Thanksgiving, turkey