Gastronomy: Pavlova

Ingredients:

4 egg whites
1 ¼ cups caster sugar
1 teaspoon DYC white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 tablespoon Edmonds Fielder's cornflour

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.


2. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites and sugar for 10 minutes or until thick and glossy.


3. Mix vinegar, vanilla and cornflour together. Add to meringue. Beat on high speed for a further 5 minutes.


4. Line an oven tray with baking paper. Draw a 22 cm circle on the baking paper. Spread the pavlova mixture to within 2 cm of the edge of the circle, keeping the shape as round and even as possible. Smooth top surface over.


5. Place pavlova in oven then turn oven temperature down to 100°C. Bake pavlova for 1 hour. Turn oven off. Open oven door slightly and leave pavlova in oven until cold.


6. Carefully lift pavlova onto a serving plate. Decorate with whipped cream and fresh fruit.

Serves: 6
Source: Edmonds Cookery Book, 1992

Notes:

The first pavlova of the season (Christmas Day) was made with plain sugar and malt vinegar because that was what we had in the house and it turned out just fine.
Mr O also only preheated the oven to 100°C from the start and left the oven door closed overnight after the obligatory 1 hour of baking.
As for toppings... that is completely up to your imagination. Kiwifruit is very popular, but my personal favourite is fresh strawberries. Yum !

We have also decided that pavlova goes particularly well with trifle. It is environmentally friendly with no wasting of egg yolks if you make your own custard for the trifle. It may be waistline unfriendly, however. But it is Christmas and the calories don't count at this time of year - everyone knows that. ;)

***

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the wonderful New Zealand icon that is the Edmonds Cookery Book, here is a little bit of history from The Bookshelf a website that is dedicated to selling cookery books.

"It all started in Lyttelton, last century, when 20-year-old Thomas J. Edmonds developed his own baking powder in response to the need of dissatisfied customers who came into his grocery store complaining about the unreliability of the baking powder then available. In 1879 he sold his first batch of 200 tins, telling his customers that their baking was 'sure to rise', and before long the housewives of Canterbury were clamouring for more of the tins bearing his distinctive rising sun with cakes trademark. The rest of New Zealand soon followed suit and in 1907 the first edition of the Edmonds Cookery Book, with its 50 pages of 'economical everyday recipes and cooking hints', made its appearance. Every couple who announced their engagement looked forward to receiving their free copy - a practice which lasted for some years.

Sales of the baking powder continued to rise in spite of competition from some fierce contenders for the business and, by 1915, sales were equivalent to six and a half tins for every family in the country. Seven years later Thomas Edmonds opened his factory, which was to become a Christchurch landmark for nearly 70 years.

During the Depression it became the first factory to introduce a 40-hour, five day week and this forward thinking ensured that none of the workers, many of whom had been with the firm for an impressive number of years, had to suffer redundancy. And the city of Christchurch also gained from this remarkable man's generosity when he erected a band rotunda (now a restaurant) and a clock tower to celebrate his firm's 50th anniversary in 1929. This was followed by the creation of a park behind the factory which later became city property.

As Edmonds increased its range of products the success of the cookery book grew and more than three million copies have now been sold - making it not only a bestseller among cookbooks but the biggest-selling book ever published in New Zealand. In 1989 a companion volume, the Edmonds Microwave Cookery Book, was published and there is no doubt that the Edmonds cookery books will continue to stay New Zealand's most popular cookbooks for many years to come."

Children & Cultural References

Is it just me, or do all Mums come up with pet names or silly phrases when talking with and about their children? I am asking because it appears that I have been doing this. In my case I seem to be merging several popular cultural references into my daily language but altered specifically for use with my daughter.


At dinner times she is frequently referred to as The Milky Faced Kid, due to her somewhat distractable nature and messy eating habits.
The Cultural Reference will be familiar to those with a penchant for white chocolate.

Then there is my enjoyment of things science fiction with the grumpy and crabbit child. There are times when she approaches Whinge Factor 9.
The Cultural Reference is obvious to Trekkies everywhere.

And as she has moved on developmentally into the stage of bubbling, she has become The Phantom Raspberry Blower. No disrespect to the Two Ronnies or Spike Milligan intended.

So, am I alone or are there others of you out there with stories to tell? 'Fess up.

Renovation - VI

The work on the house continues. It is finally hitting the speed of a rolling snowball from the movies.
We now have the guts of a carport. Our kitchen is almost totally installed, as of today. We now have a proper hallway door, it is just waiting for the glazier to come back with safety glass for the two glass panels. We also have our new "back door" installed and I have a set of keys for it. The pergola is starting to look like a real structure too.

What's still to be done:

the kitchen and dining area tiling
the living room area carpeting
the carport (concreting & roofing)
the pergola
the final electrical bits and pieces
the final plumbing bits and pieces
the final bits of painting and finishing
the clean-up
the fixing of anything that isn't up to scratch (don't get me started on this one)

and probably a bunch of other stuff that I have forgotten about.

Here are photographs from the end of last week.


The skeleton carport.


The patio without pergola.


The partly installed kitchen.

Photography Challenge I - Still Life

I've decided that I need a bit of motivation.

I'm a snapper in photographic terms. I point and click, hopefully not cutting off anyone's head in the process. But I love looking at great images.
I'd really like to take some great photographs, but I don't want to invest the sort of money that DSLRs and photo editing software costs before I know that I will be able to make the most of the technology.
That's the frugal Scots person in me joining forces with my inner Mother to control the overly-exuberant child who wants the toys NOOOWWW, despite showing no actual talent or stick-to-it-iveness with the hobby.

So, in order to begin the appeasement process, I have decided to launch a once-a-month photographic challenge for 2008.
I'd love for you to join in, if you have the time and inclination.

This first challenge will be an extended six week challenge, since it is about half way through the month already, and I don't need to be adding extra deadlines around Christmas time.

The challenge is to take a still life photograph or photographs that I am particularly happy with. I will then post them on the blog and if you want to crush my spirits, feel free to give me constructive critical feedback. Ouch, that's going to hurt. :lol:

If you want to join in you can either post a link to your own blog entry here in my comments, or put a link back to this post in your own entry.

I'll see you back here on the first posting in February.

For Cat Lovers and Bloggers Everywhere

Are you a cat lover?
Are you a blogger?

If so, this guest post by Tony Clark over at Lorelle on Wordpress should bring a smile to your face on a Monday morning.

Oh Waily is primarily a House CAT, with the odd foray into being a CAT-alyst. Hopefully it's not too much of a CAT scan though.

I've also come up with some other CAT-agories for you to consider:

CAT-o-nine-tails: a blog that deserves a flogging for terrible writing.
CAT-amount: wild and fierce, blogs that rant.
CAT-erpillar: slow starter, but blossoms into a great read.
CAT-aphract: an armoured blog that doesn't let you get to know the blogger behind the writing.
CAT-ullus: a romantic and poetical blog.
CAT-o: the political blog.

What Kind of Cat are You?

Things to Live By

A few weeks ago I was having an insomnia moment, and was sitting up trying not to disturb those members of the Oh Waily family who happily go to bed, fall asleep and snore loudly. Don't duck - you know who you are!

I was sitting and thinking about life, the universe and everything else, as you do when your brain refuses to shutdown for the night. When I got to the section on life my mind began to come up with all of these ideas of what my life should be driven by. This isn't that unusual for me anymore. Since becoming a new Mum I've had quite a few moments of contemplation on the Meaning of Life (no Pythons, thanks).

It struck me after the first couple of ideas that maybe I should be taking notes on these midnight musings, so I got pen and paper out and wrote down what came to mind. I'm not sure if the order is important or if it is simply a chain reaction, starting with the first idea knocking out the second and so forth down the list. If you're a psychotherapist feel free to tell me what my meanderings in the middle of the night mean. I'm not scared to hear your opinion. Honest. No. Really.

So here they are. If you have a similar sort of list, feel free to leave a comment exposing your inner soul. ;)

Dream BIG
Take Action
Be a Leader
Be an Example
Be Graceful
Don't Give Up or Give In
Love Yourself
Have Fun
Be Grateful
Do Good
Help Others

Photography recommendation - II

I came across this photographer the other day and thought I would share his webpage and Flickr stream with you.

The post-processing technique that he uses, HDR, is probably not to everyone's taste but it sure makes some of his images completely surreal.
I like many of them, while some step over the line into neon poster status. Still, it is art, no doubt about that.

Find Stuck In Customs' website here.
Find Stuck In Customs' Flickr stream here.

And if you are really interested in the High Dynamic Range technique, you can read his tutorial on it here.

Some of my favourites are:

• Swallowing the Ruins


• The Place Where Rebekka's Horses Run Free


• Hong Kong from The Peak on a Summer Night


• Farewell India

Miss Oh Waily on a roll

At about 8:30am this morning (5 December 2007) Miss Oh Waily rolled over from her back to her front.

We were going to do tummy time on the bed and while she was doing her usual back arching and kicking out with her feet she managed to get herself more or less on to her tummy. Then she managed to turn her head enough that it lifted off the bed. This gave the momentum needed to make it all the way to her tummy properly.

I was so excited that I gave her a huge hug and was going "Yay" "Yay" "Clever girl" all over the place. After a few moments of hugging mayhem I let her roll into me (I was lying beside her on the bed) and gave her a big cuddle. Then I put her on her back, a little way away from me and encouraged her to do it again, which she promptly did. It took her some effort to do it, but she had a determined look on her face and she managed it after a minute of wriggling and thinking and wriggling again. This time she couldn't control the momentum and she ended up rolling right onto her back again (and directly into a cuddle with me), but she managed to roll from back to front to back in one go.

We tried for a third time, but the effort was getting a bit much. In the end she started getting a bit frustrated, so I gently held her hip forward a bit and that was enough for her to get momentum to turn on her tummy. So, she got a slight assist on her third go. Considering she has needed to be gently pushed or pulled over on to her tummy, even this small assist is nothing.

Fan-darn-tastic. Really and truly fantastic. Now we have to watch out. She has been doing little snake crawls on the bed over the past week and it can't be too long before she gets the hang of the crawling too. I figure it'll be a month at the most. But then, I thought she would be much quicker rolling over than she has been, simply because she started to practice 6 weeks or so ago. In fairness, it has only been this last week or two that she has looked seriously strong enough to manage to turn over, so the crawling thing is probably 6 weeks away at the minimum. I guess we will have to wait and see.

Ah the small things in life. It's enough to start the day with a big smile.
My clever little girl. :D

This has been a post.

Amazing Cake Decorating

I wasn't going to do a blog entry today.
Life was mundane and apart from emptying some more boxes there really wasn't much going on that I felt the need to talk about.

Then I sat at the computer and Stumbled a few sites. Oh boy did I hit the jackpot.

• Are you on a diet?


• Do you have a special event coming up?


• Do you just love the most amazing cakes?

You think you've seen some pretty amazing cakes in your time. I thought I had.
No way. No how.

This is the most amazing cake decorating I have ever seen in my life.
I'm scared to ask how much they cost, but I really know that I want one of this guy's cakes. Really. Truly.

So, without further delay... click over to Mike's Amazing Cakes and take a look through their gallery.
Just scroll down and turn off the music, it becomes really annoying.

Then report back here with your favourites.

For the record mine are:

The Most Insane Cake Ever Built: The Tyrannosaurus Rex cake
The Quirkiest Cake: The Lopsided Wedding cake (4 rows down on the right - Wedding Cake section)
The Coolest Cake: The Pillows and Crown Wedding cake (6 rows down on the right - Wedding Cake section)

Although I struggle to get past the Knight, the Rooster and the Globe on the opening menu page.

Yes, it's official. I am blown away by these designs.

Renovation - V

Our home is coming together in a slightly more rapid manner now, for which we are very grateful. Soon we will no longer be serenading Miss Oh Waily to sleep with digger noises and bandsaw songs.

Progress made today:

• The weather boards have been completed on all sides of the new extension.


• The electrician has pulled cables for the lighting of the extension.


• The side garden (down the driveway) has been removed totally.


• The back garden has been dug down to the level of the patio.
  
  
  
  • This leaves a raised bed along the back fence.
  
  
  
  

• Over the weekend the painters completed the roof colour.

And here are some photographs that I took a day or so ago.

***

This is part of the new extension. Mr O can be seen measuring out the distance for his birthday present's cables. (His lovely wife - me - purchased a home theatre system for his upcoming "big" birthday.) Men and tape measures, they seem made to go together. You can also see that our dogs are not the least bit interested in such excitement and that our roof had not yet been newly painted.



This next photograph is of the inside of the new extension, facing the area that will eventually be our kitchen. Benny kindly stood there for scale.



Then there is the view from approximately the kitchen sink to the sitting area, and on the far left, the new doorway to be.



And a view down the side of the house, the scruffy old garden to the left is now gone entirely. It's a shame about the roses, but they weren't being looked after and were pretty in spite of us rather than because of us. The nasty red-brown fence that has been falling to bits almost since we moved in will also be going during this mayhem of renovation. The fence man wasn't able to promise us a before-Christmas job, but after 10+ years of living with it, I told him that a few more weeks wasn't really a problem.



And finally, a view of the front of the house so you can see the new colour. No longer that green with a hint of grey, we have gone grey with no real hint of green. Much nicer I think. And if you are wondering about the bizarre coloured curtains in the windows to the right, please refer to my earlier entry and bleat about builders called We are home in which I detail one of the rather annoying things that have happened during this epic building project. (Not that it is large-scale, just that it seems to take on all the tragedy and comedy of an epic.)

My First Award

and I am so proud of it too. :)



Thank you to Andie for nominating me. I'm glad that you enjoy reading my blog.
Now for the hard part... who to nominate. This always gets me. But at least this time I have managed to move on and read more than one or two blogs. I'm not confident of managing to nominate ten other bloggers, but I will give this a go.

1. Bruce at Bioneural. He was my inspiration to start blogging and I always enjoy the travel pieces and occasional rant.


2. Solnushka at Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things. Only the second online blog that I subscribed to and still enjoy.


3. Around My Kitchen Table. This is a new blog that I have been trying on for size lately, and am enjoying the sense of humour immensely. I have yet to make comment there, so this award will probably come as a surprise.


4. Michelle at Scribbit. Another new blog on my list. I have been enjoying the food, crafts and family stories over the past month and am slowly working my way through the archives. Great ideas to be had here, and definitely smiles too. Also likely to be a surprise award.

Okay, so that's all I can muster at the moment, at least it is an improvement over the last meme where I could only muster a whopping two blogs. It must be a sign that I need to get out and mingle on the internet more. At least that's the excuse I'm going to use for sitting at the computer for the next little while, studiously ignoring the unpacked piles of boxes directly behind my chair.

Once again - thanks Andie. :D

Reincarnation - Miss Oh style

I discovered that reincarnation is possible.
Miss Oh has provided me with the evidence I needed.
On waking up a few days ago I pulled back her covers and discovered that she is in fact the reincarnation of Mahatma Gandhi.