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.

Tomato-chilli sauce

I am getting quite slack lately with both updating this and actually putting effort into cooking.. my passion for food is still there, I just haven't been. Busy with everything else and then basically taking majority of this past week off cooking/cooking anything decent.. I  had a surgical procedure done last Friday, so that gave me some "Stay in bed" and "Do as little as possible" tickets. I'll admit.. Frosty makes a pretty mean chicken noodle cup-a-soup. ;)

Tonight I made us crumbed chicken schnitzels (real chicken, not processed crap!), baked home-cut chips and on a whim I made a tomato-chilli sauce/relish, not too sure what you'd call it but it's tasty. Quite simple to make too...

3 chillis finely chopped - use whatever chilli you wish, to create however hot you want it. I used some sort of Scorpion Strike chilli.. VERY HOT.
1 small or half an onion, finely diced
1 clove crushed garlic
1 can crushed tomatoes as well as 1 or some fresh diced tomatoes
half teaspoon of brown sugar
few spoons corn flour, mixed to a paste with some water


In a pot, sauté off the onion and garlic, add the chilli and tomatoes. Stir well, add in the sugar while stirring then pour in the cornflour pastey mixture. Stir and let simmer on low for 20 minutes or so. And that's pretty much it! Serve it with chips, chicken, whatever. Store it in the fridge for later, spread it on bread. :D

Pita/Pocket bread chips

It's awesome the sort of foods you manage to conjure up when there's very little to begin with..  So lastnight as part of dinner/snack/whatever.. I made some baked chips (or crisps, if you will.) from 2 large rounds of flatbread/wrap bread/pita/pocket bread - I really don't know what to call it, but I am sure it's all the same thing.

Cut or tear it into various shapes/slices/random chunks, and throw onto an oven tray - spray with olive oil and sprinkle over some garlic salt, chilli powder and Parmesan cheese... Bake at 180C until crisp, golden, lightly brown.

I'm going to experiment with other herbs/salts.. yum. :D

Well then...

Isn't it ironic that, the week we decide to start eating healthy, I end up in Emergency Department for a suspected heart attack... Go figure.
Oh and to top that off, I finally wander out to check the mail after being on bed rest for a few days, to find a pamphlet in the mailbox about private hospital cover...

My heart was fine, by the way. Turns out it was a muscular issue called Costochondritis, which is an inflammation of the cartilage in / between the rib cage, or something to that effect. Causes heart attack symptoms and given my cardio history, they had to do everything they would normally do until heart attack is ruled out.

Drugged up and off my chops from morphine. 

We haven't had much chance of trying the new diet as of yet.. although weetbix for brekky every day is going well. You'd be surprised at how much weight you can actually lose just from eating breakfast - and that bit of extra walking around at work.
I was going to make the ham and broccoli frittata, but instead I turned it into a ham, ricotta cheese and spinach frittata. VERY TASTY.

Since I have been confined to bed for most of the days following my hospital scare, I haven't been well enough to eat much either. Frosty has been cooking his own dinners of spaghetti (it's now 4 or 5 days following, so I am well enough to get back into the kitchen without overdoing it.), I was feeling a bit peckish the other evening and craving soup. When I'm not well I always want mums pea and ham soup, it's EPIC. Failing that, I decided to make my own veggie soup with what we had on hand:

1 diced onion
1 clove crushed garlic
some chillis
1 diced carrot
1 diced potato
handful of broccoli diced
some shredded spinach
500ml carton of veggie stock, and 500ml water
I threw it all into a pot and let it simmer until all veggies were nice and soft, then threw in a handful or 2 of macaroni (Because I knew I needed the nutrients of the veggies, as well as something wholesome.) and let it simmer away until the pasta was cooked. I did however add too much pasta... and now it's just a pot of pasta with veggies. That's what happens when you have leftovers sit for a day I guess.

Healthy eating

Frosty and I have been trying to eat healthier lately -  weight loss for him, general health for me, and in order to save money for the both of us. It's also a bit difficult when the price of healthy eating turns out more expensive than take-away.. and there's always the risk of not actually LIKING one or 2 of the new healthy recipes, thus basically wasting the money you just spent on buying the ingredients for (that you wouldn't normally have!)
It's a double-edged sword. And take-away is just sooo yummy... BUT, it's a habit we are really trying to break!

Burgers, fish & chips, creamy curries with mountains of rice and na'an bread, pizzas... oh god... then there's the sweets.. junk food binge from Coles, or a 2am servo run for overpriced chocolate..
We will continue to eat sweets, whether I make it or we buy it, but it will now be an occasional treat. Yes we've become "Swappers" - swapping 'Often for Occasional' - if that makes sense. We want and need to get out of debt, so we can't keep buying shit.

Due to my foot fucked to buggery, I am still unable to go to the gym to do my cardio (Sorry Mr Cardiologist who gave me strict orders to go!) So I cancelled my membership last month, and basically since November 2011, I have been sitting on my butt (School holidays from TAFE!). TAFE resumes next week so I'll be getting that little form of excersise from walking the block (10 minute) from home to class etc. To the best of my walking ability anyway! Ankle brace and just a whole lot of taking it easy really. But since I don't really have kilos to shed, the whole "watching my ass grow" hasn't really phased me.
Frosty is still signed up to the gym, but has been doing home exercises lately instead. And walking more at work (See, swapped Sitting for Walking!) AND actually eating breakfasts! It's surprising how much weight can be lost just by eating a decent brekky each day.

I devised a rough meal plan the other evening, I thought I'd post it here as well since I've had a few friends and family asking for a copy. It's not much, I'm still likely to add to it, change it around a bit. I grabbed a few recipes from The Biggest Loser Australia site and since I'm not one to stick to recipes (Unless it's baking) - I will be changing ingredients around to suit our tastes (While keeping it healthy!)

So here it is..  I've tried to add variety in there so it's not the same each day etc. Sometimes a lunch will become dinner, all depending on how I feel at the time. As I said, it's a rough plan, and will be changing here and there, tweaking it. I know most don't bother with meal plans, but we're budget conscious, so everything in the plan has to fit within our grocery budget. And just remember, go to butchers to get your meats, fishmongers to get your fresh seafood and fruit & veg barns/markets for fresh fruit and veg, and other fresh produce (eggs and whatnot.), it's really a lot cheaper than the supermarket.

To avoid confusion, the following is a SELECTION of what to have, not a "Have all 5 items for breakfast etc). You pick one food item for the meal.

Breakfast - Yes I'll have to get up a bit earlier to cook it, but it's what a good wifey does, right? Since the hubby goes to work and all...

• Wholemeal toast with light peanut butter
• Wholemeal toast with egg
• Omelet filled with shallots, tomato and spinach (Oh boy, Iron helps us play!)
• Weetbix

 Lunches -

• Wholemeal wrap with turkey and salads 
• Wholemeal wrap with roast chicken and salads
• Ham, broccoli and sweet potato frittata
• Homemade pizza scrolls

Dinners - 

• Brown fried rice
• Baked fish parcels with steamed vegies and some form of non-buttery lemon sauce
• Roast chicken breast and vegies (chicken can be marinaded in something, herbs, spices etc)
• Prawn glass noodle with lime and coriander dressing
• Chicken, spinach and low fat ricotta cannelloni
• Sweet potato will be replacing all forms of normal potato (baked chips, mash, roasted etc)
• Crispy skin salmon and vegies
• Baked chicken burgers with wholemeal rolls and salads
• Syrian chicken with cous cous or brown rice
• Spanish seafood paella 
• Wholemeal spaghetti with prawns, chili, asparagus, lemon juice and garlic
• Marinaded chicken or beef skewers, baked, with vegies

Snacks (for throughout his work/uni day and my general lazy days in class) well.. he says he's happy with an apple. I give him a week before he starts bringing those apples back home!! As for MY snacks, well I eat just about anything, corn thins, crackerbreads, tinned tuna and whatnot. As long as it's healthy and minimal carbs.
Keeping in mind that if you drink plenty of water with your meals, you will actually feel fuller. It's just a matter of retraining the brain.

Prawn & vegie stir fry

Quite a filling dish, for a stir fry!
Half kilo peeled, de-veined prawns, tails off (You can leave the tails on for "presentation" if you want, I find it a complete and utter waste of time.)
1 large red capsicum sliced
1 onion sliced
1 bok choy roughly chopped
1 clove of crushed garlic
About a teaspoon of sliced fresh ginger
Handful fresh coriander sliced
4 sliced birds eye chillies
3 spring onions/shallots, sliced
1/4 cup sweet soy sauce, 1/4 cup  hoisen sauce, 1/4 cup cornflour + water mix
Any other sliced fresh stir fry vegies would go well. The above is all I had on hand. :P

Combine the onion, bok choy, garlic, ginger, capsicum and chillies in a hot pan/wok and stir fry until fragrant and lightly coloured. Add the prawns and stir/cook for 3 minutes. Stir in the sauces and corn flour, coriander and spring onion. Cook a further 2 minutes and the prawns should be nicely coloured and cooked.
Serve as is, or with noodles/rice!

Craving for comfort food..

No, I am not pregnant.
I love comfort food, and I tend to go through my phases of making various foods mum used to make when we were kids. Some of these include: Sausage, onion, gravy & mash potato; Soft boiled egg and soldier toast (Yes, I have this for dinner some times!), good old fashioned casserole and dumplings.. Corned beef and veg.. oh yum!
The one  comfort food I have been yearning for lately is Macaroni Cheese - not the rubbish you buy in packets, add milk & butter and nuke. Mum makes it differently, dry. But the good kind of dry. It was just cooked pasta, mixed with grated cheese, pepper and a beaten egg, into a baking dish and baked. And it came out like a slice.

So I had set out with the intentions of making this lastnight. Then as I always do, I got sidetracked. And ended up with something entirely different. Oh well!

I had cooked and drained some penne pasta, found some leftover roast chicken in the fridge, half a capsicum and a small onion. So I tossed all this together in my spring-form cake tin (As I don't own a casserole dish anymore!) I made a cheesy bechemael sauce (White cheesy lasagne sauce!) and beat 2 eggs into it, mixed it into the pasta mixture, added grated cheese to the top and baked it until it was golden!
Not quite what I was craving, definitely not what mum makes! But still quite tasty!

Chocolate filled chocolate cupcakes CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE!

Chocolate x3? Chocolate 3 cubed? C3??
Anyway enough of that because 1. I'm confused already, and 2. I no longer lay claim to knowledge of mathematical things like I used to once upon a time.


Frosty wanted chocolate cupcakes. Not just any old chocolate cupcakes - chocolate cupcakes with chocolate cream in the middles and chocolate cream on top. Okay. Simple enough. I made it with mockcream/buttercream out of simplicity. Although it was a challenge in this heat at the moment! 35 degrees C out there!

I am happy with the result.

Hollowed out

Buttercream filling

om nom nom

Buttery short crust pastry

Being on a tight budget lately, I've been doing more home baking and trying to stretch things out, food-wise. Always keeping a well stocked pantry of SR and Plain flour. I've even managed to dig out my old (OLD!) work apron (Ahh back in the days of kitchen handery.)... I truely am a housewife.

I made a beef mince pie (the recipe is much like this, only replace steak with mince.) the other night and had to have a(nother) crack at making pastry - I've only made pastry once or twice prior to this and it was a bit of a failure.. not too much mind you, but still.
So I used the following recipe, and it was enough to make both base AND lid of a 9 inch pie dish.

2.5cups plain flour
1 cup cubed COLD butter
Pinch of salt
A few tablespoons of ice cold water

In a large bowl dump the flour, salt and butter in, and using your fingers, crumble the butter and flour together - it should resemble a crumb-like texture.
Add the water in, start with 3-4 table spoons - you will need to knead it to bring it together. Add more water by the tablespoon as needed - you'll know you have enough when you're able to pinch a small ball of it and it stays together. Not too wet and not too crumby. Turn it out onto a floured board and lightly knead it into one big ball - then divide it into 2. Shape them both into a ball each then flatten out to a thick disc shape.

Wrap in plastic wrap then pop them into the fridge for about 20 minutes.

Once you've made and cooled your pie filling - take one of the pastry discs out of the fridge, and turn it out onto a floured board, roll it out to fit the base of your LIGHTLY GREASED pie dish. I think mine rolled out to about 3 or 5mm thick. Mine wasn't a perfect circle, but hey I like it rough anyway. ;)  (Tip - Lifting rolled pastry is a pain the arse, so once you're done rolling it, use your rolling pin to help lift it into the pie dish. Put the rolling pin at the edge of the pastry, and gently with your fingers help roll it onto and over the pin. Then it's just a matter of unrolling it all once on the pie dish. )

Lay your filling in, and do the same for the lid of the pie. Seal the edges with a fork, trim it if you want it to look neat, I prefer the rustic look. Brush a beaten egg over the top and cut a V to allow steam to escape.

Bake at around 180C for around 40-60 minutes or until lightly golden!

Ultimate Chocolate Mousse of Doom

This is a RAW egg based recipe.. so..... if you can't eat that, don't eat this.

200g GOOD dark chocolate (don't use cooking chocolate!)
20g butter

Thickened cream (600ml)
3 eggs separated (one bowl for yolks, one bowl for whites!)

Break the chocolate up into more manageable pieces, without eating it.. or some...  and set it with the butter in a heatproof bowl over a pot of lightly simmering water, to melt it. Stir occasionally as it melts and make sure the water doesn't touch the bottom of the bowl.

As that's left to it's own devices, melting, as it does.. in a large mixing bowl whip up 1 cup (ok so I may have used 2 cups?) of Thickened cream. Set that aside into the fridge.

Chocolate melted yet? Remove from the heat and let it cool to BLOOD temperature then beat the egg yolks into it.
Gently fold the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture, then whip up the egg whites in another bowl, until soft peaks form.. Then gently fold into the chocolate mixture until all combined.

If you want to be fancy, divvy it up into pretty martini glasses, or if you're lazy leave it in the mixing bowl. Allow it to set in the fridge for a few hours. Serve with whipped cream, cherries, raspberries.. whatever!

Ok it may look like a pile of poo, but trust me, it's delicious choccie mousse!

Tea Cake!

Light and fluffy sponge cake with vanilla seeds scraped into it.. and melted butter over the top while still hot, and generously sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. :D

Focaccia

Ok so apparently I put "waaaaaaaaaay" too much garlic in things, and as result, both Frosty and the cat are keeping away. But it was tasty and well worth it IMO!

2 cups plain flour
1 sachet dry yeast
2 tablespoons olive oil
pinch of salt
pinch of sugar
3/4 cup warm water

various herbs and spices, I used the following:
Basil, oregano, chili powder, onion flakes, garlic salt and diced BACON.

Start by combining the dry herbs with the flour and yeast in a large mixing bowl, add the salt, sugar and bacon, combine. Add the oil and water, and you'll need to combine and mix with your hand by this point. Mix/knead it lightly in the bowl, form a ball, throw some cling-wrap over the top and set someplace warm for half an hour to rise.
Knead it lightly out onto a floured surface and shape into whatever focaccia-type shape you want.. I formed it into little balls (about the half size of my fist?) and arranged them on the baking tray with one in the middle then around the outer, in a circle.. kind of.. as they cook, they join. So it makes it one of those "pull apart" breads.
Let it sit on the tray for 15-20 minutes, to rise a little bit more, then sprinkle the top with cheese if you wish.. I used mozzarella.  Bake for around an hour or until cooked, enjoy!

Friday = Procrastibaking!

Yep, Friday again! This morning I made some yummy traditional Scottish shortbread, using my "traditional Scottish Gma's" recipe, and some bacon egg & spinach muffins - which so far are proving to be extra kind to my stomach since I've had a migraine for 3 days now (it's going slowly!) and have not been able to keep anything down. These are light and tasty, perfect.

The muffin recipe is just your standard base recipe of milk, SR flour and some eggs. You can add whatever you like to it.

Shortbread is simple:

1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup plain flour

beat the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy, then stir in the flour. You will have to use your hands at this point! Mix to a dough, turn it out onto a lightly floured bench and roll/shape to your liking. transfer to a baking tray, sprinkle lightly with sugar then pop it into the fridge for 15-20 minutes until it's firmed up again. Whack it in the oven at around 180C until lightly golden.

I must admit they seem to be lacking something... 

Another year older..

I didn't have a cake last year, and to be honest a  birthday with no cake just doesn't feel birthdayish at all! I was going to make myself one but a dear friend went ahead and bought one for my special day.. aren't I loved!? :)