Macaroni 'n' Cheese Pancakes, Rachael Ray April 2012
Mango-Basil Vacherin, Food and Wine April 2011
Have you ever lamented the fact that when you go to brunch, it's almost always just breakfast foods? Neither have I. But that is the problem that Rachael Ray set out to solve with this collection of recipes-- Brunch with Punch-- three recipes that are either a breakfast food with a lunchy taste or vice versa. The doughnut-sausage "corn dogs" looked interesting but labor intensive, and I feel like deep frying is a waste of oil. The bacon and egg salad with waffle croutons seemed blah. So we went with the mac & cheese pancakes. They actually don't start with leftover mac & chese, because that apparently makes it too wet. So it's really just a buttermilk pancake batter with some cooked pasta and grated cheddar inside.
These weren't as weird as you might expect. The macaroni (although G accidentally picked up the even curlier cavatappi) contributed an interesting texture, and the cheese was actually quite good inside of a buttermilk pancake. It would be great to just make buttermilk pancakes with some cheese and a bit more salt than is normally called for, to convert sweet into savory (although the recipe still suggested serving with maple syrup). I think if you made these pancakes for your kid's birthday slumber parties, you would be voted the coolest parent ever. Spaghetti tacos for dinner and mac & cheese pancakes for breakfast.
We will, actually, be making real mac & cheese next week, and some variations later on in the month. For some reason, April seems to be enriched for mac & cheese or other pasta recipes. I wonder why.
Tonight we ran out of time to cook dinner, because Turbo Tax is a disaster. It asked something like how much do I spend on room and board, and then it added that amount in as an extra taxable form of income. Whut. So I had to fill out a new form and an amendment form explaining why the previous one was wrong. Not worth it. I have never spent so much time on taxes. We ate leftovers from last night's braised chicken.
But we still made dessert, as the meringue prep started much earlier in the day.
The mango ice cream is just store-bought, although it was really good. The basil ice cream was normal vanilla with the addition of basil, blanched in simple-syrup and blended up, and then refrozen. The meringue kisses have just three ingredients: lime zest, 4 egg whites, and 1.5 c powdered sugar. I think they taste a little like soap, but other people say they are good. The whipped cream is just cream, sugar, and lime zest.
This is a great dessert. To me the meringues don't add that much, but I would love to eat this basil ice cream, mango sorbet, or lime whipped-cream again, alone or together. The whipped cream could have used a bit more lime. I think it would be interesting to try this with different flavors, like swapping out lime for ginger or something. Everything is make-ahead, up to four days in advance, and looks impressive, so I think this would be good for a dinner party or something. In fact, we brought it with us to a get together, although people didn't really assemble the pieces because everything was in the fridge. People just ate the meringues alone instead. There were about 120 of them! (they're small).
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