Raspberry & chocolate cheesecake

I love making cheesecakes, and I love experimenting with different flavours for cheesecake.
Lastnight I made a raspberry and chocolate layered cheesecake. It turned out okay.. needs some fine-tuning should I make it again next time. Perhaps less raspberry extract (which I made myself) as the raspberry layer is a bit soft, and overpowers the chocolate flavour.

I used my "base" cheesecake recipe - which is simply 250g soft philly cheese, half cup sweetened condensed milk and 150ml whipped cream.
Chocolate biscuit base in a lined-springform cake tin.

I melted some chocolate in a bain-marie and mixed that into the cream cheese and condensed milk, then folded in the cream. Poured it into the tin and popped it in the fridge while I made the raspberry layer...

The chocolate layer

 Next was making the raspberry extract - Since I wanted a natural raspberry flavour and colouring. I used 300g of frozen fresh raspberries and a tablespoon of caster sugar and allowed it to slowly boil down. As I am poor and don't own a fancy food processor, I used my potato masher. Once it cools down enough, I used an unused chux cloth to strain it - no one likes raspberry seeds!

Straining out the juice

Looks like bloodied testicles..

Juice was added to the philly cream and condensed milk, and whipped cream folded in.

Jalapeño Bacon Poppers

It's been far too long since I updated this. Have had some life changes and busy with my diploma and all that other fun real life stuff.. It's all good though! Anyway, I was lucky enough to finally find some jalapeños at the local supermarket finally. SCORE! Jalapeños are awesome, but tied with bacon just makes it all much better.. added with cream cheese in the middle.. creates a warm salty explosion in your mouth.. ok ok, keeping it PG13.

These tasty morsels are great for entertaining, or just as a snack.

You'll need:
Jalapeño  chillies - however many you think you'll need.
250g block of Philly cream cheese (I used light, hey, we're trying to be health conscious here!)  
Bacon.. I used a cheap home brand of middle cut, I think it was.. You'll see in the photos below anyway.
Toothpicks - Don't use cheapies like I did!

Using a knife (obviously), slice the jalapeños in half. 

Then using the same small knife, scoop/cut the seeds and ribs out of them.

Using a teaspoon, scoop and press the cream cheese into them.

This is where it gets fiddly and messy. Wrap the bacon slices around each one and secure with a toothpick

Bake at around 200C until the bacon is cooked.

Have been a bit slack lately

I guess we all get to that point at one stage or another and forget about the upkeep of blog-writing.. I have been busy completing my Cert IV in Information Technology, then had 3 weeks off (of which I was struck down with a flu/lung infection, now going into week 4, yay go me!) and have started my Diploma just this week. While I have been doing the usual cooking, much of it hasn't really been blog-worthy, as the recipes are already up here somewhere anyway.
But just for the sake of posting, here's some photos of some of the food we've enjoyed recently...

Epic hamburgers, on huge buns with lettuce, tomato, chilli onion, homemade meat patties, cheese, bacon, egg, tomato sauce and creamy Hellmann's mayo :)  - And no, Frosty doesn't eat all 4.. 2 is always leftover for lunch the next day :)

Creamy tarragon chicken with spiced cous-cous. It's one of those help-yourself-type meals.

Chicken stuffed with sun-dried tomato, spinach and Brie cheese wrapped in Prosciutto, with a side of Dutch carrots, steamed potatoes and spinach.

Pizza night from a new local pizzeria.. That's my leftovers "Medium" inside the "Large" box. Large box wouldn't fit in the fridge, Frosty had 4 slices leftover of it, of which had to go onto a plate just to fit in the fridge.

And here's what I baked this morning, Bacon, cheese and fresh corn muffins. Moist, healthy and delicious.

Aussie Gold Scrolls

Growing up, we always called Vegemite +  melted cheese (on toast, or whatever), Aussie Gold. They go so well together! And yes I LOVE Vegemite.. all sane Aussies do if they know what's good for them.

I came across this recipe the other day for CheeseyMite Scrolls and thought I'd give it a whirl.. Despite it just being a simple Scone base dough. I've made these scrolls with puff pastry before and they aren't the same. Next to try is actual bread dough.

CheeseyMite Scrolls

And the photos of my makings..

All in all it's a fairly easy recipe, probably more suited to little mouths (kids) due to the softness of the scone dough. I probably should have used more Vegemite and cheese.

We'll just have quiche..

Most sane people tend to have some sort of a side to accompany their quiche for dinner, right? Salad, chips or something.. The quiches I make are a meal on their own.. Especially the one I made the other night.....

Yep.. that's a fine lookin' quiche.

I did something different and used my spring-form cake tin, just to make it nice and deep. Made the shortcrust pastry as always. About 6 eggs and 300ml thickened cream, 1 cup of milk, a few rashers of bacon and some onion. Only downside was it took freakin' ages to cook. So dinner was rather late that night, but that isn't unusual at the House of Frost!

I like to add different things to quiches, depending on what's on hand.. some ricotta, spinach, sliced tomato.. fresh herbs.. all go really well!

Baked onion rings

I LOVE onion rings.. I think most sane people do.. My stomach doesn't handle large amounts of oil-soaked foods however, so I wondered how baking them would go.. Usually when I'm craving something and are broke/my driver refuses to take me out to spend more money we don't have, I'll attempt to make it (if I haven't made it previously).. it either works out better than store bought, is enough to satisfy my cravings, OR it turns out so terrible my cravings are gone for a few months. These actually turned out OK.. Definitely not the same as deep fried, but still a tasty snack/party nibble. 

You'll need 3 bowls and a plate.. and a baking tray. You can lightly oil it if you want, they don't stick anyway.
Bowl #1 - 2 lightly beaten eggs
Bowl #2 - plain flour with some pepper, cayenne pepper
Bowl #3 - bread crumbs

Slice your large onion into rings and dust them lightly in the seasoned flour. The reason for the plate is as I was flouring them, I was also setting them aside on the plate until they were all floured. This gets messy. Grab some floured onion rings, dip them in the egg, then into the bowl of crumbs, then onto the baking tray. Do this until they are all done.

Bake at 200C until lightly golden, enjoy!

Chippies!

I was lucky enough to receive not one.. but two free (large!) samples of Red Rock Deli's new Corn Chip range, Sea Salt and Fire Roasted Red Chilli & Lime -

I wasn't sure which to open first, and since they were both "family" size packs (185g, which I wasn't expecting at all) - I wanted to open both but given the humidity of where we live, I also didn't want them to spoil and go stale quickly.. But that thought soon passed my mind and I tried the Sea Salt first.
Really tasty compared to your normal plain corn chips, and the poppy seeds in them give it a slight different flavour. Right amount of salt too, without being overpowering. These would go really well with just about any dip or salsa I'd imagine. Or on their own, as that's what I do anyway. Oooh or even in the form as nachos..

I sealed the bag up for the night the best I could and tried to distract my mind from wanting to pop open the Fire Roasted Red Chilli & Lime. I didn't want to eat them all in one hit then be left disappointed when I run out too soon.

The next morning I decided to pop it open and put into a lunch box to take with me for the day.. I made the mistake of trying one... Then stood in the kitchen just munching away on them for breakfast. I did manage to put them down, and leave some for later. These are just too addictive. With the right balance of chilli & lime I might add.. Some real good bite to it, I ate enough to make my eyes start to water. Really tasty. I wouldn't spoil these with a dip, they are just too good on their own.

Red Rock Deli also have a Jalapeno & Mature Cheddar flavour which I am yet to try next time I pop down to the supermarket.

While writing this I have just checked the list of ingredients (on the Fire Roasted Chilli & Lime, at least.. as it was the closest within reach..) and I am very happy to say they do NOT contain MSG/Flavour Enhancer (Which explains my lack of allergy headache I normally get from other chips!)

Note: I do NOT work for Red Rock Deli nor have I been paid to write this review. The above stated review is only my own opinion expressed as an ordinary housewifegamercomputergeekwench.