Day 16

Ok, I’m going to cut to the chase, one word that would describe my latest endeavours – Disaster – and that’s with a capital ‘D’. Day 16 and I made Chicken skewers with carrot and apple salad and then, for dessert, Rhubarb and ginger meringues.

I made the marinade for the chicken skewers first which was simple – juice of two limes, ground cumin, ground coriander, garlic, grated ginger, natural yoghurt, salt and pepper. The diced chicken marinated in this for 10 minutes while I made the carrot and apple salad which consisted of grated carrot, grated apple, runny honey, lemon juice and chopped mint. After the 10 minutes, I put the diced chicken on wooden skewers and cooked them on a frying pan. Once done, I set them on top of the salad.

Saturday night and I always make dessert but I’m not even sure if I should tell you about the recipe for the meringues considering how they turned out but I might as well…

I didn’t really intend to make the rhubarb and ginger meringues tonight but the rhubarb in M&S was reduced from £3.99 to £1.49 and I’m a sucker for a bargain so, to make the meringues, I needed two egg whites whisked with caster sugar until the mixture formed stiff glossy peaks. I then divided the mixture in four on a baking tray which was lined with parchment paper. The recipe said to cook them for 10-15 minutes and I’d know they were done when one would come away cleanly from the paper and have a crisp shell so into the oven they went.

Meanwhile, I made the rhubarb and ginger puree by adding sugar and water and that literally took 10 minutes to do. Then, it was back to the meringues…

At 10 minutes, I had a peak in at them and couldn’t believe the size of them compared to how small they started off but they were nowhere near done. At 15 minutes, I had another peak and a poke but the ‘shell’ still felt like marshmallow so I thought I’d give them another 5 minutes. Five minutes later and another poke. Nope. Still not crisp. “Hmmm, what will I do?” I thought.  “Ah sure, I’ll whack the oven up another bit and hopefully that will harden them up!”. Ten minutes later (which was a total of 30 minutes’ cooking time) and I gave up. Instead of the meringues looking like meringues, they reminded me of a white and beige polka dot dress that my baby daughter has. In case you think I’m exaggerating, here’s the proof…

I saved the above picture file on my computer as 'disaster meringues'. Meanwhile, here were the M&S meringues which is what they were supposed to look like even if I did mix in the cream with the rhubarb and ginger when it was still too warm...

The verdict…

Dear Husband said that the carrot and apple salad tasted like…wait for it…toothpaste! He gave it -15 out of 10 and, just in case, you missed that, that was MINUS 15! I said he couldn’t be serious but then he revised his score and gave it 1 out of 10 – purely for the effort I’d made. I ate the salad too and it was awful. It was the sweetest thing I have eaten in a long, long time and that is saying something. I think I’d give the salad 1 out of 10 too. No, wait. I'm giving it  minus 1 out of 10 because I spent time on something which I'll never get back. As for the chicken skewers, Dear Husband gave them 7 out of 10. 

As for the meringues, what can I say?! Hmmm, I know. As long as there are ready-made meringues that I can buy, I will never, and I mean never, attempt to make meringues again. Seriously. What a total disaster! When I was doing the food shopping today, I bought a packet of the ready-made ones in M&S (mostly because Dear Son grabbed them) but I thought I could taste-test mine against the ready-made ones. How thankful was I that I did buy them?! My meringues were that bad that I didn’t even serve them. Out to the dogs they went. The dogs are now probably lying in a sugar-induced coma as we speak. I ended up serving my rhubarb and ginger with whipped cream on the M&S meringues and they were beautiful but there is no point in giving them a score. I must say though, the rhubarb and ginger puree was really lovely. Dear Husband scored the rhubarb part with 9 marks out of 10. He said that part of the dessert reminded him of the way his great-aunt used to make them.

To conclude, I know where I went wrong with the salad. It was simply far too sweet with all the apple and honey. The meringues - I still don’t know where I went wrong. There was a reason why I hadn’t made meringues in years and, tonight, I remembered why. I honestly can’t make them. I followed the recipe to the letter and I still messed them up. So, I just have to put tonight down as a loss. As Michael Jordan once said..."always turn a negative into a positive" and, on that note, I will spare my dear family from carrot and apple salad and my dodgy meringues in the future. Onwards and upwards for tomorrow…