In the Kitchen with Donald

As promised over in the Airmiles thread here's what is the first Epic Fail post (come on gang, I can't be the only one who has experienced a kitchen disaster!)
During a wonderful crowd-sourcing discussion over what to do with my very limited diet @isabellea suggested i could make meringues and Google search turned up a recipe that i thought would work, here's what i was expecting to happen juxtaposed with what ACTUALLY transpired, enjoy!
First here's the ingredients i had to work with: Blueberry Syrup that i made the day before, strained to get rid of the seeds and skin, a carton of egg whites (only so many things i can make with the gazillion yolks i was creating!) and "liquid" glucose that is so thick the only way you can measure it is by weight.
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Here's what I set out to make:
"Sugar Free Meringue Cookies, That Are Identical to a Normal One"
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but i wanted them to be more like THESE (which is why i made the blueberry syrup first, that was only to get swirled in just before baking)
"Blueberry Swirl Meringue Cookies"
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The recipe called for a syrup that i can't have BUT it popped up during my search for the glucose 6 months ago (gawd it seems like a decade ago!) and it has the same consistency and works the same way with the same sweetening level, score!

First step is to heat the egg whites and syrup over some boiling water and beat the heck out of it until it changes colour and thickens up to look like this:
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OK, so far so good, here's mine, colour is slightly different because the glucose is more yellowy so that's ok.
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Next step is to pour it into the stand mixer and beat the hell out of it with the whisk attachment until it forms peaks and looks like this

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and here's where the wheels fell off, i gave up after almost 20 minutes, constantly checking and poking ,eventually giggling because i was a sticky mess by this point and needing to lick off my fingers and numerous spoons (uhm yes please, gooey sweetness almost candy-like that i've not had since Disney!) Notice it hasn't gotten any volume and is just running back into the bowl. By this point poor Max was getting hot and since i need him for the constant bread making, i turned him off and pulled the bowl out.
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Next step was SUPPOSED to involve either piping them onto a baking sheet or spooning nice, neat dollops, I had already decided i wasn't getting my piping bags out and had a few spoons handy.
Supposed to look like this
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The blueberry recipe showed swirling the syrup onto the prepared, neat little pile to look like this
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Uhm, yeah, not happening, notice how runny my stuff was?!?! what my PUDDLES looked like with the syrup swirled in because I made it dammit and it created it's OWN mess plus "wasted" 1/2 bag of precious blueberries!


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HUH apparently i can only add 10 pictures! continuing below, because we're almost done :P
 
The meringue debacle continued!
By this point i had given up on the idea of making smaller cookies because, frig I'd been in the kitchen for almost 90 minutes and had left myself with a ridiculous mess that was quickly solidifying onto every surface!!
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I threw the cooking sheet into Owen and left the kitchen in a sticky mess to retreat to my couch with the Surface to check in on my Peeps!

As i checked on them periodically to see if they had dried out enough to turn the oven off I was thrilled to see them puff up and look "almost" acceptable but that quickly changed before they were done.
Remember what they were supposed to look like?
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And here's what i pulled out of the oven, look closely and you can see that they at least dried out!
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Not to be taken down by some egg whites & glucose i did "eat" one while curled up in my Mickey Snugglie (that we bought the night it dropped to under zero with the wind chill
:cold:) to watch more of Imposters -- excellent series on Netflix BTW --
meringue.jpg

Now when i say EAT, what i mean is take a bite and then spend 10 minutes pulling something similar to sweet super glue from my teeth. So I switched to licking it more like a sucker almost but messier and not particularly easy to eat. Anywhere the blueberry stuff was seemed to be even more prone to turn into something very similar to sponge toffee and cement my teeth together. Not to be daunted i kept going and licking the *cookie* then my fingers, while my hubby would occasionally look over and dissolve into giggles that required him to take his glasses off to wipe away tears (yeah, i was a MESS!)

I still have 7 of them that you can bet i will consume because, DANG i used up a lot of my precious ingredients and i refuse to toss them. Good thing the dentist is still seeing patients once a week
 


I wonder if the egg whites in the carton are pasteurized or something, so they wouldn't whip.
A couple of things - first thought was where the heck were you when i started this process because, dang, yes i did forget they're pasteurized. So off to Google to see if that might be the problem and found conflicting answers. Had a d'uh moment when it crossed my mind that Burnbrae Farms (they make the eggs) has a recipe section so I pulled that up. They actually have several recipes for meringues. I'm guessing it was the glucose that cause the problem, same consistency and texture but not the same product the recipe called for.


2nd, we LOVE John Oliver, Welcome, welcome WELCOME!
 


Maybe add the glucose directly to the blueberry syrup and then add to the whipped egg whites? I always made meringues using fresh eggs since they are baked so wouldn't know if pasteurized eggs should work or not.
Yeah, I'm not gonna attempt this again -- the glucose is cheap (that container cost $5.49) but it's only carried in a very small downtown bulk-type store and I'm concerned they'll run out. It is one of my initial 6 safe foods on my list from the allergist and there have been times when i wake up in the night because I'm hungry and it's an easy calorie boost without needing to make a meal!!!
 
What do you do when you're left with a bunch of egg yolks? (Sadly I've discovered that only egg whites are safe, you know, the part I despise!) Why you search for a recipe of course! And because you know your hubby loves chocolate you stuff some chippies into a few of the cookies 🍪 he loves them btwView attachment 489205


With extra egg yolks you can make butterscotch or vanilla pudding or pie or ICE CREAM!! I just love myself some ice cream, I make it about once a week. Although the ice cream recipes with egg yolks I don't usually bother with, but it is a good way to use them up. Butterscotch Pie I can't keep in the house, everyone loves it. I don't care for meringue so I usually use whipping cream for a topping, hence the egg whites get ditched.
 
I decided to listen to my gut so to speak and create a treat for myself, I mean I cook a lot it shouldn't be as hard as that failed attempt 🤪
here's what I started with
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the cream is from a small independent diary in guelph (side note, one of hubby's favourite customers) and here's the ingredient list
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and for comparison here's sealtest 20200425_182726.jpg
so it's safe for my diet. Whipped it up added some of the leftover syrup I'd made the other day
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took some of it added some frozen blueberries and stuffed it into the freezer. I'll check later how that turns out but for now I'm sitting on the couch with the entire bowl and a spoon 🤪
 
That looks yummy!

Off topic of actually "working" in the kitchen, I looked at my white shaker cabinets and decided today was the day! I spent a couple of hours scrubbing each cabinet door, front and back! Wowzers they look so much better. A few soya sauce type stains that even a magic eraser couldn't get out, but other than that they are finished!

Advice to people redoing their kitchens...go with flat-front doors. So much easier to clean than shaker!
 
That looks yummy!

Off topic of actually "working" in the kitchen, I looked at my white shaker cabinets and decided today was the day! I spent a couple of hours scrubbing each cabinet door, front and back! Wowzers they look so much better. A few soya sauce type stains that even a magic eraser couldn't get out, but other than that they are finished!

Advice to people redoing their kitchens...go with flat-front doors. So much easier to clean than shaker!

but shaker are so much prettier!

i think mine need a good clean too. my cleaning list never seems to get any shorter...
 
I have had amazing results 3 times so far during COVID making these amazing cinnamon rolls. They are supposed to be just like the ones at Gaston’s Tavern @ WDW (Which I have actually never had)!

I follow the recipe except I cut the dough into 12 large cinnamon rolls instead of massive ones.

I also just make a simple milk / icing sugar / vanilla extra glaze to brush all over them after baking. I don’t like cream cheese icing and I didn’t bother with the caramel sauce either.

http://ashleycrafted.com/recipe/gastons-tavern-giant-cinnamon-rolls/
 
Yesterday I made pastry for 6 single-crust pies, using the recipe from Canadian Living (as I recall, it is very similar to the one on the Tenderflake Lard box). Froze most of the dough (there’s a quiche or two in my future!), and made an apple pie with the rest.
It’s been a while since I’ve made any pastry at all, and I was very happy with the Canadian Living recipe results. Following the advice I got years ago from a friend’s mother who made great pastry, I substituted 1 T. vodka for the 1 T. vinegar in the recipe, everything else was pretty standard.
WOW, I miss that Magazine! Until a few years ago i had most of my mom's favourite issues and probably 3 years worth of my own stored in the basement. Over the years i had slowly transferred my most used recipes, by hand, to several loose pieces of what quickly became dog eared, grease stained paper. I took time to turn them into a Word document that i then pared down and printed out (those also became grease-stained and well fingered) Last year I took the time to create a section of my COPYMETHAT that's titled CDN Living :D
 

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