Cherry Cheesecake

Give me a piece of cheesecake with fruit and I'm a happy woman. It's probably my favorite dessert, but, funnily enough, I have only ever made it a handful of times, and never with gelatin. Up to now, that is. This recipe was adapted from a magazine, and I've been wanting to try it out for months. I finally mustered the courage last night. You see, I find gelatin really intimidating. I must say it wasn't all smooth sailing either: as it turns out, for some reason it just didn't work with the cherries. The instructions on the bag said not to use it with pineapple, kiwi, figs and papaya, but it didn't say anything about cherries. Anyway, I used a bag of vanilla pudding powder for thickening (around here a bag of pudding contains 40 g/1.5 oz of powder and is used for 500 ml/2 cups of liquid). When it was finished it still didn't look promising. To be honest, although it had cooled down almost completely, it was still way too liquid. I was starting to despair when I decided to shove it in the freezer. Which was a miracle really - after about an hour or two in the freezer it was perfect! It didn't freeze, and the consistency was just right. Afterwards I just transfered it to the fridge and it's been heaven ever since.

Ingredients

For the crust

250 g (8 1/2 oz) flour
125 g (1 stick) butter
50 g (2 tbsp) sugar
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp vanilla sugar

For the filling

400 g (14 oz) soft cheese
500 ml (2 cups) whipping cream
1 bag (10 g) of gelatin
1 bag (1.5 oz) of vanilla pudding powder
500 g (1 lb) cherries
350 g (12 oz) powdered sugar


Combine all the ingredients for the crust in a bowl. It will be crumbly at first, but with a little patience it will all come together nicely. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.
Bake in a springform pan for about 20 minutes (200°C/390°F) or until golden.
Combine the cheese with 150g (5 oz) of powdered sugar. Melt the gelatin in 4 tbsp of cold water and leave it for 10 minutes, then melt it (without boiling). Add it to the cheese and sugar, combine, and leave to cool.
In a pan combine the cherries, the rest of the powdered sugar and vanilla sugar and let it rest for 10 minutes. The cherries will release liquid. Add enough water to have around 500 ml (2 cups) of the mixture. Heat it, and when it starts boiling add 1 bag of vanilla pudding powder dissolved in a few (3-5) tbsp cold water and cook for another minute or two, stirring constantly. When both the cheese and the cherries have cooled, whip the cream and combine all three. Pour over the crust and refrigerate overnight.
Serve with whipped cream on top.

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Onion Rings

A bit of comfort food for Friday night!


Ingredients

2 onions
100g (3.5 oz) plain flour
2 eggs
oil
150 ml (2/3 cup) milk

Preheat the oil for deep frying to 190°C/375°F.
Peel and slice the onions into rings about 1 cm wide. Separate the eggs. Combine the yolks with flour, milk and 1 tbsp oil and mix until smooth. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and fold gently into the batter. Dip the onion rings into the batter and fry for 3-4 minutes. After removing the rings from the oil, set them on some paper towels to remove excess oil and sprinkle with salt.

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Pork And Mushrooms

When I came home from work today, I wanted something quick and decadent for lunch. I had some nice pork, and I came across absolutely perfect huge white button mushrooms at the supermarket. Thus, this idea was born.

Ingredients

1 lb pork (any lean cut)
2 lb button mushrooms
2 tbsp parsley, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup sour cream
1 cup grated parmesan
oil
salt, pepper

Cut the meat into narrow strips, season with salt and pepper, and start cooking in a hot oiled pan. Add the garlic and parsley. Wash and slice the mushrooms. Add them to the pork. The mushrooms will release a lot of liquid - cook until it has all evaporated and the meat and mushrooms have turned golden. Add the sour cream and cheese. The cheese will serve as a thickening agent. Cook for another few minutes, until the cheese is melted and the sour cream bubbly. Serve hot with rice.

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Roast Pepper Relish 2

This is the second version of my roast pepper relish, the one I will be storing for winter. It takes a bit more time to make than the first one, but it's definitely worth it! I'm not giving exact quantities, because I usually make huge batches for the winter, with 10-12 kg peppers. Of course, you can just make a little bit to see if you like it and eat it straight away.

Ingredients

1 part eggplant
4 parts red peppers
salt
chili peppers (optional)
oil

Roast the vegetables until the peppers' skin blisters. Peel the vegetables and remove the seeds from the peppers. Run everything through a food grinder. I guess you could use a blender as well, but that's tricky - it shouldn't be too chunky, but it shouldn't be a paste either. Add salt and chilies to taste (I use 100 g of salt for a batch of 6 l already peeled and ground veggies - that's 3.5 oz). Add oil - 80 ml per kg of relish (that's 1/3 cup per 2 pints). Cook on stove top or in the oven for 30 minutes.
Ladle hot relish into hot sterilized jars. Adjust lids and rings. Cover with a dish towel until you hear the tops pop. Refrigerate after opening.

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Roast Pork Loin with Potatoes

Hoorah! My pics have been expertly recovered by my genius of a husband! Apparently there is a great open source (i.e. free) program called PhotoRec that got my pictures back in no time!
The beauty you see before you is a juicy pork loin marinated in mustard and garlic. This is my beloved reliable roast recipe and I seldom make pork any other way. Because I add a teeny bit of water while it's all cooking, the potatoes end up really tender and creamy, and crispy on top.
This piece of meat was around 3 lb, so adjust the other quantities if you're using more meat.
I served the pork and potatoes with coleslaw and tahini.

Ingredients

1 pork loin
3 tbsp mustard
3 garlic cloves - minced, or 1 tbsp powdered garlic
3-4 tbsp oil
2 lb potatoes
salt, pepper




Rub the pork with a mixture of oil, mustard and garlic (and, if you want, your favorite herb), and season with salt and pepper. If you don't have too much time you can start roasting it straight away, but, if you can, leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours to soak in the flavors. Roast it in a preheated oven. Start off with a higher temperature - like 220°C/430°F for just a few minutes, to seal in the juices, then lower the heat to 170°C/340°F. Cook for about 40 minutes. Peel the potatoes, cut them into wedges, season with salt and pepper. Place the potatoes around the meat and add half a cup of water. Cook for another 40 minutes.

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Cherry And Yogurt Muffins

I am so angry right now! I have (by accident) deleted the pictures of the wonderful roast we had for lunch yesterday, as the second course, after the creamy soup! So, unless my computer whizz of a husband manages to retrieve them somehow, I'm gonna have to make it again soon (Oh, hey! Well that doesn't sound that bad!). The roast was my planned post for today, but, due to circumstances, muffins will have to do for now.
This is part 2 of my muffin adventures. This recipe was found on The Pioneer Woman, but I changed it slightly. It was originally meant to be made with blueberries, but blueberries are quite sparse and expensive here, so I used cherries. Because I didn't want the cherries to ruin the color of the muffins, I used frozen ones - clever, huh? I guess you could pretty much use any fruit you happen to have at the moment. I also omitted the nutmeg mostly because I like to keep things simple and I thought just vanilla was enough. The muffins turned out beautiful, soft and sweet, with the occasional tart cherry.

Ingredients

3 cups minus 2 tbsp flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 cup unflavored yogurt
2 cups cherries
1 tsp vanilla extract


Preheat oven to 180°C/385°F.
In a large bowl combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl whisk together sugar, oil, vanilla, egg, and yogurt. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and fold them in gently. Add the cherries and stir (but as little as possible so that the fruit doesn't bleed into the batter). Line the muffin pans with paper cups (or butter them, if you are so inclined). Scoop the batter into the pans, sprinkle each muffin with a bit of sugar for a special crunch, and press a few cherries on top. Bake for 25 minutes.

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Creamy Vegetable and Chicken Soup

Today I finished work really early (I love my job sometimes), and managed to go to the supermarket and be home by 10 o'clock. This, of course, means I had plenty of time to make us a lovely lunch. I decided to make soup as the first course, pretending that autumn is here and that it's not 30 degrees outside (that's 86° for you Fahrenheit using folks). Oh well, at least it's an improvement on 36°C/97°F we had two days ago...
Anyway, I wanted to use some of that lovely zucchini while it's still around. It turns out the zucchini was a great idea as it gave the soup a wonderfully creamy consistency. Of course, you could make the soup without it (when it's out of season) and just slightly increase the quantities of other vegetables. I must admit that I was slightly surprised at how flavorful the soup was before I even added any meat. It was so naturally sweet, there was absolutely no need to use stock.

Ingredients:

3 onions
4 carrots
4 parsnips
1/2 kg (1 lb) zucchini
1/2 kg (1 lb) chicken breast, diced
fresh parsley
1 cup sour cream
juice of 1 lemon
1 stock cube
salt, pepper
2 tbsp oil
water

Peel and roughly chop up the vegetables. Cook on hot oil until the onions turn slightly yellow. Add just enough water to cover the vegetables and cook until the carrots are soft. Puree the vegetables using a blender. An immersion blender is simpler, but if you don't have one, just chuck everything into a regular blender. Add around 2.5 l (10 cups) water, the stock cube, and the lemon juice. Bring to a boil and add the chicken. Cook for 20 minutes, add the sour cream and tweak the taste with salt and pepper. Serve sprinkled with fresh parsley.

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My First Award! Yay!

I'm so excited! And not only because I got my first award, but also because it came from one of my favorite bloggers - Dragon from Dragon's Kitchen! Ever since I discovered it, I've been reading Dragon's Kitchen with fanatical zeal. People, if you're not familiar with this blog make sure you check it out!

The rules accompanying this award are:
1. Put the logo on your blog
2. Add a link to the person who has awarded you
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4. Add links to those blogs on yours and
5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

I love it that I need to nominate other blogs because there are so many that I visit daily and absolutely adore! So, here are some of my favorite foodie sanctuaries:

Carmen Cooks
Happy Love Strawberry
Panini Happy
Kalyn's Kitchen
For The Love of Cooking
Feeding Maybelle
Culinarty

Enjoy your awards!

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Banana White Chocolate Muffins

Well, this is my first attempt at muffins, and I'm happy to say the result was wonderful! I bought a muffin tin a while ago, but I just used it for mini cheesecakes so far. I found this recipe at Joy of Baking, and I was amazed at just how good it is! The muffins were moist, rich and soft, and delightfully crispy on the outside. In fact, they were so good, that this is the fourth time I've made them this week (and the first time we actually managed to take pictures before devouring them). This batch doesn't stray much from the original recipe, but I have tried some variations in my previous attempts, and they were all brilliant. I tried them with dark chocolate, I tried baking them as banana bread instead of muffins, I even tried substituting one of the bananas for a peach; it seems it's absolutely impossible to ruin this recipe. They always turn out mouthwateringly delicious! Definitely a keeper!

Ingredients

250g (1 3/4 cups) flour
150 g (3/4 cups) sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp vanilla sugar
100 g (3 1/2 oz) white chocolate (chopped)
2 eggs
120 g butter
4 bananas

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F
Combine the dry ingredients - flour, sugar, vanilla sugar, baking powder and soda, salt and chocolate. In another bowl, beat the eggs lightly. Peel and mash 3 of the bananas with a fork. Melt the butter and leave it to cool slightly for a few minutes (so that you don't end up with scrambled eggs). Combine the eggs,bananas and butter. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and fold gently until smooth. Spoon the batter into a muffin tin. Slice the fourth banana and place a slice on each muffin. Bake for 25 minutes.

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Crash Hot Potatoes

Sometimes I can't believe how delicious something very simple can be. I found the idea for these potatoes at For the love of cooking. I think I first made them just because they looked pretty, but then I discovered they were very tasty as well. The outside is crunchy, while the inside is creamy and smooth. What I really like about them is that I find them very versatile, and I already have a bunch of ideas for serving them. I topped this batch with a mixture of clotted cream, sour cream, herbs and leeks.

Ingredients

10 potatoes
salt, pepper
oil

For the topping

1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup clotted cream
1/2 tsp chopped fresh or dried parsley
1/2 tsp chopped fresh or dried dill
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/3 cup chopped or sliced leeks

Boil the potatoes until soft. Place them on a trey (oiled or lined with parchment), season with salt and pepper and drizzle with oil. Bake until crispy and golden.
Mix the topping ingredients and top the potatoes. Serve warm.

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