Gratitude Monday: in the kitchen

Since I no longer come home from work pissed off and exhausted from collegial shenanigans, and I now have time during the day, I’ve embarked on culinary experimentation.

It has become my custom since early in the year to have homemade pizza on Friday night. I’ll make a batch of dough that’s supposed to produce two pizzas, divide it into six balls and freeze five. Then on Thursday, I put one of the balls into the fridge to thaw overnight, and it’s all ready for my Friday night yum-fest.

Usually I use the master bathroom counter as my proofing oven—it can get to 85°F there, which is absolutely perfect for raising dough. Not so much when the AC is on. So two Fridays ago when I needed a new batch, I wrapped the daylights out of the bowl and set it out on the patio. Whoo—that worked a treat. Highest, fluffiest, most elastic pizza dough yet. Yay!

So last Thursday I thought I might try another yeasty thing. I made cinnamon rolls:

The patio was my proofing oven, and it worked fine. I kept a close eye on a visiting squirrel, but it didn’t seem at all interested.

The result was okay—the bread part seemed a little tasteless, so I’ll have to experiment. But definitely edible, and my breakfasts for the next many days are now sorted.

So I decided to tackle pavlovas with passionfruit curd. I’ve been lusting after passionfruit anything since that heavenly passionfruit soufflé I had in Dublin in May. And since I found where grocery stores hide frozen passionfruit purée, I had some on hand. I still have on hand some lemon curd from the last time I made pavlovas, so I reckoned if the passionfruit stuff didn’t come out well, I could fall back on that.

Well, readers, it came out well:

And with a splodge of whipped cream (which I may have whipped just a skosh too long):

The curd isn’t as delicate as that soufflé was, but it was grand all the same. Pavlovas are super summertime desserts, and I have five more and a half-pint of curd to get me through the current heatwave here in the District They Call Columbia.

This is what I’m grateful for today: exploring what I can do with a few ingredients, and boldly going where I have not ventured before. I'm thinking sourdough rolls are on the horizon.