Monday Recipe - Peppermint and Cardamom Meringues

Every year with my mother's family, our Christmas tradition is to draw a name from a hat and fill that person's stocking. Kind of like a Secret Santa. This year I got my stepfather's stocking. And to save money, I decided I was going to do a lot of cooking (well, and I got books really cheaply at my company's holiday book sale). I usually make cookies, but he has dietary restrictions where he can't have egg yolks or butter. So what to do?

I made meringues. By Thursday, I'll have made three kinds of meringues - cardamom, peppermint, and almond. I've made all but the almond so far. I also found the cutest Santa tupperware at Target that I'm going to package them in ( though what's up with the tupperware not locking? The tops fall off if you look at them funny...).

Word of caution: meringues are highly addictive, and they're like Pringles - once you pop, you can't stop. The peppermint ones in particular.

The main recipe below is for the peppermint, the parentheses is for the cardamom. I quadrupled or sextupled the recipe (basically I just wanted to use a dozen eggs), the amounts below are the amounts I actually used.

Also, I didn't want to waste all the egg yolks, so I'm going to try my hand at creme brule on wednesday. More to come on that...

Peppermint (cardmom) meringues

12 egg whites
3C (4C) superfine sugar
14 candycanes, crushed (T cardamom)
3/4t cream of tartar (cardamom meringue recipe didn't call for it, but I'd add it next time)

Preheat the oven to 275.

Crush the candy canes with a mortar and pestle into small pieces. Until your shoulder starts to hurt. And your hand. Almost had enough? Only 6 canes left. You want to crush them until there's some peppermint powder, and some small pieces of cane.

If you don't have superfine sugar (apparently they sell this, I didn't see any at my supermarket), take a bunch of regular sugar and put it in your food processor.

Separate the whites and yolks, making extra sure not to get any of the yolks into the whites (to make sure not to make a mistake, which always happens right when you've cracked the 10th into the big bowl, crack each yolk into a small bowl and then add it to the big bowl). If there's any yolk in the whites, it won't beat up properly.

Whip the eggs with a beater until foamy. Gradually add in the sugar (if you're making the peppermint ones, then add in some of the peppermint powder as well, but not the small chunks). Beat until the mixture forms stiff peaks (shoulder pain, yes yes). If you're making the cardamom version, add the spices after stiff peaks are formed.

Dollop onto a greased pan (or silicon cookie sheet). Peppermint - sprinkle crushed candy over top of each meringue. Cardamom - sprinkle cardamom on the top. Pop into the oven and bake for 1-2 hours (my eyes almost popped when I saw this, I hadn't realized it would take so long).

I wasn't able to fit all the meringues into the oven on the first go-round, so I put the remaining sugared whites in the fridge, then whipped them for a little while before spooning out the next batch. They were much thinner and ran into each other, but they tasted just as good.

Friday rant - Stop your whining and do something

Let me preface this post by saying that this is a rant about a specific group of people. It's about people who are overweight because they eat too much unhealthy food (and they know it). I'm not talking about people who are overweight for medical reasons, or because they have conditions which prohibit them from exercising. I'm not talking about people who are overweight and do exercise and eat healthy all the time (I'm considered overweight myself in all those BMI charts, though the whole BMI chart concept will be a rant for another day). I'm talking about people who eat sugar with a side of fat and grease and then say that they eat that way just because they're hungry all the time.

"I live for food." I heard this from one of my co-workers the other day. Our conversation kicked off because I mentioned I was famished because I forgot to put the protein powder in my morning fruit shake, and he was curious about why protein powder would make that much difference. He mentioned that he's always hungry so he ends up overeating all the time. Now, this is the co-worker who eats carrot cake cookies for breakfast, washed down with a big bottle of Mountain Dew. And I suggested eating some healthy snacks every few hours so that he wouldn't be so hungry at meals and therefore overeat. The thing is, I live for food too. People at work have joked with me that I'm in the kitchen more than I'm at my desk (for my morning/afternoon snacks, lunch, then all the water refills in between).

And I think the big problem here stems from a lack of nutrition education. Our discussion continued because he was asking me questions about my eating habits. So I mentioned that protein and whole grains tend to stave off hunger for me, and he hadn't known that. He did know that his diet wasn't healthy (that'd be a big dollop of denial to overlook the breakfast cookies), but he didn't understand the link between eating sugar/refined carbs and having energy spikes, then the sugar drop and ensuing hunger.

For me personally, (I love sugar) sugary foods give me wings to bounce on the ceilings (I love sugar), then give me baby wings to pull down my eyelids and rumble my belly (I still love sugar). If I don't eat snacks during the day, I'm famished by the time a meal rolls around and I end up eating WAAAAAY too much. I still eat good sized meals, but I make sure to have snacks in between so I don't overdo it (too much). My snacks are normally multi-grain toast with nutella or peanut butter, or I'll have some walnuts and dried fruit. Occasionally I have cookies (and I usually end up feeling hungry when I do)

Now, if you don't know the nutritional effect of the food you're eating, and that it's going to leave you hungry in an hour, then I suppose complaining is in order when you're hungry all the time. Especially if you're eating a lot, you'd figure you'd be less hungry, right? So I suppose this all comes down to lack of education about nutrition. Because people can know they're not eating healthy food, but if they're always hungry and they don't know how to make tasty healthy options, then they're not going to know how to change for the better.

And the way I eat may not be the right way for you. You might feel better eating vegetarian/ vegan, or Atkins, or following the Primal Blueprint. But the common denominator is that the right way for you to eat is a way where you don't feel excessively hungry, don't consume more calories than you expend (thank god for exercise), and that you don't overburden your system with too many saturated fats (which can be bad for the heart, among other things).

How do we get more educational about nutrition out there? Because I've heard so many people whining about their weight but then doing nothing about it (or going on a super-restrictive diet for a week or two), but many of them don't really know how to change their habits for life. Do we need more education in school? I feel like there's already sooo much emphasis on weight in our society now that this could backfire if not done properly, and make some kids obsess over their weight even more than they do now. Do we leave it up to the parents (and hope that they know about nutrition)?

I guess I've just been taking it little by little. I'm constantly in the process of figuring out the best way of doing things for me. If someone asks me about it, I'll offer up my thoughts on the matter, but I'm not going to comment if someone is eating cookies for breakfast (it's not my place to judge - yes, this may seem inconsistent given this blog post, but I'm just using that example as a springboard for the bigger discussion).

I just feel like we've gotten so far away from our food roots, that all of our food is so processed and full of chemicals, that many people now just don't know what's what in the world of nutrition. How do we start to change this?