I've become a broken record

I'M HOT!!!!! Didn't I just say that yesterday? And the day before that? LOL I am so OVER this heat. I want the cool change right now. Feeling so lethargic, hey but I'm on holidays now right, so I can do nothing if I want. ha.

So let's talk cooking? How is your recipe collection? I'm not talking about books, but the pages from magazines you rip out, the old family recipes written on scraps of paper, the snippets from the cooking pages in newspapers? If you're like me they're stuck in a big plastic bag and every now and then I might (note: MIGHT) go through them and cull. But the bag does seem to get bigger and bigger.

And what about the recipes you try and really like, they're bound to become family favourites, what do you do to preserve them never to be lost again? I did start typing all my favourite recipes in a Word document and pop them in plastic sleeves in a binder. But it looks very amateurish.

I've also made a cooking book or two in the past. One for my best friend for her shower tea, she didn't want presents so I gathered recipes from all the people attending and made a book for her. And I made another book once which we sold as a fundraiser for band, a little A5 spiral bound one. But all quite "home made" looking.

But lay your eyes on these little beauties. Sharon has made a fabulous Simple Set in three different layout sizes - either A4 or A5 where your recipes can feature the picture also and look really spiffy, ultra modern and very professional.

What a nice idea for a gift, a mother to a new daughter-in-law, or perhaps for the son about to venture out for the first time away from home or just a really nice way to preserve your own family favourites.

Now if you've followed along with this blog you'll know that we (or I should say Mike) is a big lover of pavs and it's become my speciality. So I've popped my pav recipe on a card here for you and yes this is a pic I took of the finished product. If you want the original, there's a copy of it in the Simple Set as a bonus, along with other tasty recipes from the creative team. Click on the simple set image to take you to twolittlepixels.

Now one of the reasons I decided to put my pav recipe down was because I got a "help me" email from my friend Lisa Beth's daughter, Mary Grace. She had tried my pav recipe and told me when she got the pav out of the oven it looked good and "poofy" LOL, but she turned her back for an instant and it ended up as flat as a pancake. Mary Grace, I have NO IDEA what you've done, so to help you along, I took pictures at intervals when I made this little beauty above.

This recipe is so easy, first it all just goes into a mixing bowl like so... (too easy)

Then you beat the living daylights out of it...

Until it stiffens up like this...

Then you just arrange it like so on the baking plate. Most people use a flat one, I don't have one, so this one with a slight lip works fine for me...

Then the finished product, but cool it in the oven turned off with the door slightly ajar. I have no idea why, but why argue with the recipe books right? And don't worry about the cracks, the cream covers it!

Then decorate however you like, like my picture on the card, mmmmmm.

Hope that helps Mary Grace.