food – Page 14 – helenthura.com

February 12, 2008

Chocolate Topped Baked Cheesecake

Last Friday one of the girls at work had a birthday, so I baked a cake. A cheesecake, just like the one we always make. Though this time I added some chocolate to it 🙂 It went down oh so very well, so well in fact that one of the nurses made it the next day for a gathering.

Crumb Base
1 250g packet scotch fingers
bit of all spice
50g butter/marg
50g copha
2 tbsps or so of cocoa if desired

Melt the butter/marg and copha together.
Crumb scotch fingers till they resemble fine breadcrumbs. Stir through the all spice and cocoa if using. Stir in the melted fat mixture. The mixture of dairy and vegetable fat is used to give a better “crumb” and how it holds together. Press in to the bottom (and sides if desired) of a greased 20cm spring form pan (line the bottom with foil) and chill in the fridge whilst making the filling.

Filling
500g cream cheese
bit of lemon juice
bit of vanilla
4 eggs
2/3C sugar

Cream the cream cheese till smooth. Add in the vanilla and lemon juice. Beat in the sugar till smooth and then beat in eggs one at a time till mixture is smooth. Pour on top of the base and cook in 160deg oven for 40 mins or until cooked. Run knife round edge of spring form pan and cool overnight.

Topping
idea very loved from Smitten Kitchen
50g butter
100g+ chocolate – dark or Cadbury Energy or Lindt 70% etc – Mix it up with a few different chocolates, increase the flavour or use up those half used blocks…
2 tsp honey
You could also very easily add some flavours here such as peppermint extract, mmmm.

Melt all ingredients together in a bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Pour over top of cooled cheesecake and place in fridge for 30mins to set the chocolate topping.

When cutting this cake (due to the chocolate topping) if you want a clean cut you must dip the knife in a glass of hot water after each and every cut.

In the kitchen just after it came out of the oven.

February 11, 2008February 11, 2008

Hot Wok

6:20am Sunday Morning. I was laying in bed. The phone rings, should I get up and get it or let Pabbi get it, I think. Ahh stuff it, more likely to be for him or Mum then for me. But it was for me! On the other end was Leanne feeling quiet bad for ringing so early but she had an offer for me. Leanne and her sister had been given a voucher to do a cooking class (Hot Wok) at the Spirit House up at Yandina, her sister couldn’t go and Leanne has just found out that the replacement her sister had organised couldn’t come either. Did I want to go? Of course I did. A quick shower later, breakfast and flat ironed hair later it was time to go. A pleasant drive up to Yandina, a very nice class, a very yummy class, a poke round the setting taking a few photos and then it was time to make the trip home again. So happy to have had the chance to take the class.

It was a fantastic class, really enjoyed it. What I enjoyed the most was those little tricks, like deep frying basil leaves for a garnish – soo cool looking, they go really glassy and pretty darn tasty too or making fried shallots. What other little tricks were there mmm. Also enjoyed the time spent at the beginning of the class going through all the ingredients, getting the chance to taste them/smell them etc.

The dishes we made were –

1) Dry Red Curry of Cuttlefish with Wild Ginger
This was fun, the Cuttlefish can easily be swapped out with squid. Really liked this and it looked good on the plate too.

2) Braised Pork with Sweet Soya & Cinnamon
This was another really really yummy dish, we didn’t use a wok but actually just a large pot. Diced pork neck/scotch fillets were used and were quite tender by the end, the spices used were star anise, ginger and cinnamon, oh the flavour was so nice.

3) Sweet & Sour Stir Fry Chicken
This was a good dish, a lot more mellow in taste than the other dishes, which meant when we were sitting down to lunch, it was the least popular. Though it had pineapple in, big hunks of it. Anything with pineapple in is going to go down well in my tummy.

4) Stir Fried Beef with Roast Chilli Paste
This was one of my favourites along with everyone else in the class. Stir fry sliced rump steak in a cumin/coriander/fish sauce marinade. Then fried in the wok with chilli paste/jam (that stuff is so tasty), oyster sauce, fish sauce and just before serving some Thai Basil leaves were tossed through. The sauce was so thick and yummy.

5) Stir Fried Chinese Broccoli (Gai-Lan) with Asian Mushrooms and Oyster Sauce
Nothing like some stir fried Asian Greens with a nice sauce 😀

some of the food.

Leanne with the Sweet & Sour Chicken

Leanne

Bamboo

Hibiscus

January 11, 2008January 12, 2008

nectarines in summer.

It is summer at the moment. Matthew is working at a new fruit shop. They get the best stone fruit, actually they get some of the best fruit in general, I have started to eat mangos this summer as well, as the ones they get taste just right. I love stone fruit in general but Nectarines are so good in that you don’t need to peel them first.

Eating a nectarine is such an enjoyable moment. Standing on the front verandah leaning over the railing you listen and watch suburbia around you, a dog in the next street is barking, a car drives up the street, the son next door is channelling his inner heavy metal self. You however have only one concern at that present moment and that is the ripe nectarine you hold between the thumb and forefinger of your left hand. As you raise it to your lips, your mouth automatically opens anticipating that sweet flesh. There is that split fraction of time when the nectarine is in your mouth but the skin is still unbroken and you are overwhelmed with desire to close your jaw firmly, breaking that reddish skin, eager to get to that brilliant yellow flesh that awaits you. As your teeth break the skin, your can feel the first trickle of juice hitting your taste buds and the rest of the world is truly forgotten. For the next period of time, you have only one concern and that is savouring that nectarine bite for bite till you have sucked the last piece of flesh off the stone and licked your fingers clean of that juice. Your stomach is placated for a while until a few hours later you feel the urge to have another nectarine. This time however the rain has arrived and instead of leaning over the railing, you lean over the kitchen sink instead and repeat what you did before.

December 30, 2007

in the kitchen

Today I spent the day off and on in the kitchen, just having fun. Mixing and matching flavours. Listening to the radio, watching the wind outside blow and swoop all over the yard. The wind that we have at the moment is something alright. Last night I made a batch of Tomato/Capsicum Pesto. So so so so so yummy. Today I made pasta for uno. Yep 90g flour, 10g semolina, 1 egg = pasta for one. Mainly it was pasta for one because I rolled it out with a rolling pin and well I enjoy making pasta but hand rolling pasta is a whole lot more intensive than with a pasta maker. I had planned on having it for tea tonight with some anchovies, mascarpone, bit of basil and a bit of sun dried tomatoes. That can wait for tea another night. Instead for tea. I had a brothy soup of sorts. As we do every year we have a smoked leg of sheep (it is meant to be a leg of mutton but in reality it ends up a leg of lamb), every year it gets hacked to pieces till it gets left in the fridge with just a bit of meat left on the bones. Today I decided that I would make a broth. I grabbed my shiny new Le Creuset and set to work, sweated down an onion, a few cloves of garlic and then in went some carrots and beans. After they had softened a bit, the bones went in, covered it with water, put a few bay leaves and peppercorns in and left it. It simmered away for a good hour or two, then I threw in some chopped up chorizo to add to the smokey flavour of the sheep. A good while later the rest of the meat had fallen off the bones and I now had a very fragrant, wholesome brothy soup. Toasted a few slices of bread and mmm dinner was nice 😀 especially soaking up the liquid with the bread 😀

Of course I finished off the last of my pesto the other day so I made a new lot which was a blend of Lemon Basil, Greek Basil and Sweet Basil. I love pesto. Just so darn tasty. There is nothing quite like the smell of basil.

December 27, 2007

Christmas Morning Tea

Morning Tea on Christmas Day is always a sugar filled event; rum balls, apricot balls, vanilla rings, lebkuchen, loftkÃ¶kurs. Then a touch of savoury with pineapple dip and salmon dip.

It is also a time for all of Grandmum’s good china to come out. I think Grandmum would roll over in her proverbial grave if we used anything but the good china (proverbial because she was cremated). The glasses are one of the most treasured pieces in the good cupboard, my aunt brought them back from Venice many years ago, it does feel quite refined drinking lemonade out of those glasses 😀

December 24, 2007December 24, 2007

to market

On Wednesday I went to market. to market.
I walked up and down.
Tomatoes, $8, great for sauce
Rockies, $2 a carton.
Cherries, super sweet.
Listening to their calls.

Some stand and watch you, waiting for you to decide that the price & quality is right. Others see you coming and do their best to talk you into buying from them.

There is no partridge in my pear tree but I do have 20kg of tomatoes, 8kg of capsicums, 5kgs of cherries and 4kg of mushies.

Which will become/has become
frozen mushies & capsicums
semi-dried & dried tomatoes
dried roasted capiscums
pasta sauce
frozen cherries for baking
cherries for eating 😀

We picked up two cherry pitters from the shop which made it so quick and easy to pit the cherries for freezing. I also picked up a curved paring knife, which has made coring the tomatoes a dream. It is now Monday morning and I just put on the last lot of capsicums to dry and there is one last tray of tomatoes that will be dried in a few hours. For some reason, I am guessing the weather it has been taking a lot longer to dry the tomatoes & capsicums than usual.

I spent a period of time each day, sitting at a little table on the back cement, with a box of tomatoes on one side, my drying trays on the other and the waste bucket between my legs. I core, halve or third the tomatoes depending on size, pop the backs, squeeze out some of the excess juice, arrange them on the trays and pop them in the dryer. Some of the tomatoes I have seasoned with some salt and pepper but the others are 100% tomato.

The dried roasted capsicums are possibly my favourite though, they have this slightly smokey intense capsicum flavour, are about 2mm thick and have a texture similar to a fruit roll-up. Quite nice.

Today is Christmas Eve, it about 8:30am here and we are about to put up the Christmas Tree, like a good Icelandic family, we decorated the house yesterday and put our outside lights up last week. Mum and I went to the farm yesterday to get our tree and of course to decorate Grandad’s house ready for Christmas Day at the farm.