Sunday Dinner

Our friend, Dustin, decided to buy me Rock Band special edition (the one with the guitar, microphone and drums!) for my birthday, so I invited him over for a lovely dinner made with mostly ingredients grown/made close to home.

Our dinner consisted of Justin's brown butter corn with basil (I could really eat this everyday), the purple beans (which I found out turn green when cooked, so disappointing) and grilled sandwiches with bacon, yellow tomato, mozzarella & basil on rustic Italian bread. The bread came from Wheatfield's http://www.wheatfieldsbakery.com/bakery.html, which is one of our favorite places in Lawrence to eat at. The bakery was featured on a "The Best of" show on Food Network in 2003. It's pretty amazing bread and I could live on their baguettes with some Irish butter! The bacon cooked nicely and did not get smaller like some brands do. You could clearly taste the difference in my $7/lb bacon, so much that Dustin and Chris both commented on how good it tasted. Thanks Amy's Meats! http://www.amysmeats.com/ The yellow tomatoes were really sweet and juicy. When I bought them at the farmer's market, the lady told me that she has to save the seeds every year because she can't find them in any catalogs anymore. I hope that she'll continue to grow them as long as I live around here! I love basil and I always hate buying grocery store basil because it's never very fragrant plus the taste is nothing like fresh, locally grown basil. Next year, I am planting a garden since the interior of my house is finally finished with (well, mostly done) and I'll be sure to plant lots and lots of basil. Anyway, dinner was a success since there wasn't a bite leftover and everyone cleaned their plates!




The sandwiches before the bacon was added. The tomatoes were amazing!


Also, we picked up two growlers of Free State beer, one Ad Astra (my fave) & one Oatmeal Stout (Chris' fave). For only $7.29, you can fill up your jug ($3) and enjoy this wonderful beer at home (4-5 glasses). For you readers that aren't familiar with Lawrence, Free State is a popular brewery in town with some of the most amazing beers. In all of our travels, we still haven't been to any other local brewery that has such great beer. But we won't give up trying! http://www.freestatebrewing.com/.


For dessert, I decided to make a favorite that I had never tried to make before. Pavlova. Not Pavlov's dog, but a light, airy, sweet meringue cake topped with fresh whipped cream and fruit. It's easy, easy, easy and wonderful for summer since it's not heavy. The recipe that I used is one that I found online. I added a teaspoon of vanilla for more flavor. Also, I didn't use their whipped cream topping recipe, but just threw one together on a whim myself. It's pretty easy, get out your mixer and whip some heavy cream + some sugar (to taste) till it's thick. You can always omit the cream and only use fruit. I used blackberries and kiwis, but would have loved more berries (of all sorts) to go on top. I also made four smaller cakes instead of one big one because if you have any leftover cake (we had one since there were only 3 of us), it's easier to keep them for later. You just need to store it in an air-tight container for later. After you add the toppings, it will need to be eaten (oh, bummer) because the meringue will get soggy if you try to keep any leftovers. http://www.joyofbaking.com/Pavlova.html
Look at how white the meringue is! Organic eggs are the best! If you wanted to be really wanted to be fancy, you could pipe the meringue with a icing bag and make a really pretty dessert. But I didn't feel like pulling out the cake decorating kit and cleaning it.



The finished product. I need some plates with color for my photos of white foods, don't I?


NOTE: I used my organic eggs for the egg whites in my pavlova and since I had extra yolks (and didn't want to find a recipe for just yolks), I decided to just scramble them with some leftover mushrooms. While cooking the yolks, I noticed that they smelt just like chicken. I was shocked and I was feeling a little sick to my stomach about it, wondering if I would really be able to eat them after that. But I powered through it and had the high calorie yolks. They were pretty damn delicious. Nothing like a chicken abortion for a snack (sorry if after reading that comment, you'll never be able to eat an egg again)!


P.S. Our rock band is taking open auditions for anyone interested because Chris has been demoted to groupie status....haha.