Sunday Dinners and Meringue Pie

How shall I begin?

I am so excited to start up this blog and share with all of you my cooking adventures! I have always had so much fun in the kitchen and sometimes I have a few good stories to tell about them as well. I hope that family and friends alike will enjoy looking at my recipes and maybe trying some themselves. Please always feel free to share with me recipes of your own or tips about the ones I share with you.

For as long as I can remember I have watched the people I love cooking and in so doing I have developed a love and a passion for it myself. I remember that my mother’s mother always looked graceful and elegant as she cooked.I watched her hands as she cooked and chopped, making ambrosia at Christmas time. I admired how pretty her hands looked as she worked.

My daddy’s mother was also an excellent cook. When her husband died and she needed to support her four children, she opened a boarding house in Goodwater, Alabama. The trains would stop in Goodwater and the passengers would unload just to stay there. My daddy used to tell me the house was always full, and his mother would cook for every single one of those guests. Her food had to be good, that was how she made a living. She was never hesitant to tell me how she cooked one of her dishes and share her love of cooking.

I remember waking up in the middle of the night to the smell of a cake baking as my mother made one of her famous pound cakes at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning. To this day I am astonished at all that she was able to accomplish each day. Every year, each of her five children had a homemade birthday cake, but even on ordinary days I am amazed that she was able to keep five children in line as well as well fed. She always got all of us to church each Sunday and after we came home and played, we would come in to a big Sunday dinner, every single Sunday without exception. I still am not quite sure how, but  fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and pies always appeared on the dining room table.

I hope to share with you the love and warmth that Sunday dinners brought to me through stories and recipes that I have borrowed from my mother, my grandmothers, other loved ones, and even ones those that I have perfected on my own over the years.

I decided that I would start off by sharing a simple meringue recipe that I have tweaked over and over again through the years searching for just the right flavor and fluffiness. I think that I am finally satisfied with this one and I hope you enjoy it too:

Pie Meringue

4 or 5 egg whites

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon cream of tarter

1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix egg whites on high with a mixer until they are frothy.

Slowly pour in sugar, cream of tarter, and vanilla.

Beat the mixture until stiff.

Top pie and bake at 350 until the top is lightly brown.

 

 

-Dixie