Surprises for St. Paddy's

My daughter surprised me with a delivery on Friday of this pretty "Shamrocks for Good Luck" plant! I've never seen such large shamrocks with darling little white flowers. It made the perfect centerpiece for my table today, as we celebrated St. Patrick's Day with my family with a corned beef and cabbage dinner. Of course, we had to have a few samples of brews to go along with it!

I also made a soda bread and a brown bread to accompany the meal.

And, for dessert, we had a fruit and berry-topped pavlova (meringue) that my sister-in-law made, seen on the left below, and an orange cake that I made.
Yes, those are green PEEPS marshmallow chicks that I used to decorate the dish -- a little mix of the two holidays that have come so close this year!

Here is the delicious Pavlova Recipe:

4 egg whites that are at room temperature
I cup (8 oz) sugar
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring
1 teaspoon cornstarch
Whip cream and berries/sliced fruit of choice for topping
Preheat oven to 250 degrees

With an electric beater or hand whisk, whip room temperature egg whites in a cold glass or metal bowl until stiff and peaky, then quickly add sugar one tablespoon at a time while beating, then add the vinegar, vanilla flavoring, and cornstarch. ( Do not over beat or eggs will separate. if that happens to add another egg white or two.
Line the baking sheet with parchment paper. Draw a 10-inch circle on the parchment paper as a guide for the meringue, then turn the paper over.
Use a pastry bag with a large star tip and pipe out to make a meringue circle following the line you drew previously, then fill in the center with the eggs whites, and then make a bowl shape by building up the edges with a second layer egg white. If you don’t have a pastry bag, use a spoon to mound the meringue on the parchment paper and make a well in the middle, creating a bowl-shaped shell.

Put the meringue in the oven at 250 degrees. After 45 minutes, turn the heat off. Leave the meringue in for another hour, or until it is completely cool. You can even leave it overnight.
While the meringue is in the oven, cut up your fruit and prepare about 2 cups of whip cream
Remove the meringue bowl from the oven. Make sure it’s nice and cool—if it’s still warm, wait and try again in a little while.
Fill the meringue bowl with whipped cream and put the fruit on top and serve promptly, so the meringue does not get soggy from the fruit and cream.
It's really an easy dessert to make, it looks very impressive, and tastes delicious!
Another surprise I received this weekend was the beautiful quilt patch seen below from Edie, at The Sporadic Pack Rat blog! I won this for leaving a comment on her blog during the One World - One Heart event.

It's hard to see from the picture, but the outside of the square is a dark forest green, and the inside pattern is made of patches of material that are shades of greens, beige, browns, and burgundies. There are also beautiful delicate beads and embroidery intermingled with the stitching -- just lovely -- thank you so much, Edie! I love it!

Edie has another blog called The Irish Traveler, and she is presently in Ireland blogging about all her experiences -- go take a peek and say hello!