This weekend, two very big food-related things happened. First, Kjersti turned 24 on Sunday and had a Birthday-Ween Costume party. And second, Michelle and Paul threw a potluck! A yummy, yummy potluck.

And I tried two new recipes for both.

So, for Kjersti’s birthday, I made beer bread for her. A few notes for next time: I poured the beer rather haphazardly so a lot of head formed. But I mixed everything up anyway and the bread was none the worse for wear. I think giving it a little time to rise made the texture a lot lighter and yummier.

And then for the potluck, I made lemon meringue pie. Finally, I rolled out a good crust without a lot of difficulty. However, this time I cheated and added about 1/4 cup less flour, added enough water to make sure it all stuck together and then used flour to help me roll it out after chilling it for a long time. Perfect. However, I think next time I will add 1/8 cup less instead because the crust came out almost too buttery.

In addition, the meringue recipe was new. A few notes for next time: I will make sure that the lemon curd has cooled more before spooning the meringue on top. I feel that the bottom of the meringue melted when it came in contact with the warm lemon curd. Also, the meringue wouldn’t form stiff peaks but I think it came out not too badly. I thought the lemon curd was tasty, though opinions on its sweetness and lemonness are appreciated so I can tweak. 🙂

Here is my pie. You can see the little piece I broke off to test its eatability: