Multitude Monday - 1000 Gifts - It Really is Raspberry (shhhh) Meringue Pie

Ever heard of a raspberry meringue pie?

I hadn't.

But I had just taught my son how to make lemon meringue (he did a phenomenal job, by the way)... I was thinking about missing raspberry and blueberry picking season in Michigan this year, AGAIN... and I started wondering. I'm really glad I did.

In the words of the teacher in one of my all-time favorite children's books ever, "Sometimes when you begin to wonder, you begin to make things happen..."

I guess I could've simply typed raspberry meringue into a google search, but I didn't.

Well, not until our Google-independent creation had already been gobbled and devoured. I was the tiniest bit disappointed, though not really surprised, to find I was not the first to have this idea. There are actually lots of recipes out there.

However together, Nadia and I figured out how to make  a raspberry custard simply by modifying the lemon custard recipe and voilà: Raspberry Meringue Pie.

We used raspberry preserves to make a syrup from which we made the custard.

Nadia likes to use butter when she makes her pie crusts... and... 
we've found that adding a tbsp of vinegar helps make a flakier crust, more like what you'd get with shortening.

In the oven after adding the meringue to the cooled pie.

Just out of the oven...

Doesn't it look yummy?

Tim volunteered to be both guinea pig and blog "model..."

And it was... delightfully yummy, that is!

If you don't believe me, just ask Tim!

You can be sure we'll be making this again!

SOON!

this week's gratitude list:

(#s 2878 - 2904)

fun in the kitchen with my Nadi-girl!

for not relying on Google to tell me what to do

creative solutions

creative cooking

more rain than I've ever seen in Niger

lots of arrivals - meeting new friends and renewing acquaintance with old friends

watching the Olympics

internet that has been sufficiently fast to allow us to actually stream some events live - since London is almost the same time zone!

new, unimaginably fast world record in women's 100 m butterfly - at least I couldn't have even imagined it many moons ago when that was my best event

it's my last week working in the business office - finished just in time for school to start up again at Sahel

company for the week - colleagues from Benin have been up this past week. They have four boys. Brendan is calling his bedroom the "party room!"

our company brought their pet monkey... his name is Dexter. The kids are highly amused, particularly Rebekah (Why am I not surprised?)

Lego contraptions

dancing tinikling late at night

the good tired that comes from having fun...

...so tired, in fact, that my exhausted little boy feel asleep, sitting straight up in a metal chair during the church service last night. I didn't even notice (he was sitting a row ahead) until I did notice that everyone else had gotten up and headed for the finger foods and fellowship snack after the service... except him!

first finding and then discovering that M&M LOVES unsweetened cranberry juice (since it is her "medelin" (i.e. M&M-ese for medicine), that's not just a good thing but a GREAT thing!

watching a non-destructive (I think) wash of water down a waddi - from very far away!

finding 5 pounds of homemade meatballs sufficient to feed 20 people, including several big boys... especially since I had my moments of doubt as they started dishing out their plates!

lots of homemade donuts (powdered sugar cake donuts, glazed twists, powdered suar lemon and raspberry-filled for the last Saturday morning of the month

almost emptying the freezer so we can defrost and clean it later this week

blogging while littlest Wrightling brushes my hair (she claims she's looking for lice... that's a whole other story and please DON'T ask!)

getting ready to sort through clothes and figure out what is still acceptable to use at school

looking forward to a quiet weekend next weekend - after all our visitors of the past week and one-half... before the new school year starts

friends who make the effort to stay in touch, even though their lives are busy

things I'm learning as I prepare to teach a seminar on meeting the needs of exceptional learners... in French (i.e. I'm teaching in French)

it still never fails to amaze me that, by God's grace, I actually can communicate in another language