strawberry cheesecake

I was never a huge fan of cheesecake until I started making them myself. I was always dissatisfied with the crust, or the sweetness, or the texture. Store bought cheesecakes haven't got anything on homemade cheesecakes. It's practically a whole different desert. They're not too difficult to make. This is only my third cheesecake ever. Here's the recipe I used.

I had some strawberries in the fridge and was toying with the idea of incorporating fruit into my cheesecake as I had only ever made the plain vanilla cheesecake.

I used about 2 cups of fruit, mashed them with a potato masher and then used the blender to puree.


I prefer chocolate wafers to graham crust. Who doesn't want more chocolate in their lives? Plus the chocolate crust reminds me of my favorite part of dairy queen ice cream cakes. To make the crust, crush the cookies by hand or with a hand blender and add 4 tablespoons of melted butter.

Now comes the fun part. I don't own a springform pan or anything fancy so the cake went into that lovely round casserole dish. How to ensure it can be properly removed from said casserole dish? Your friend parchment paper saves the day.

Get a square of parchment paper bigger than your dish. Fold in half and the continue folding in on itself so you can make a circle with the right diameter for your pan, like so. Use the middle of the circle as your guide.


Then trim the paper with scissors along the top edge of your pan and voila!


Butter the pan before arranging the paper around it.



Parchment pan with strawberry puree lurking in background.

Back to the crust. Press the cookie/butter combo into the bottom and up the sides of the pan with your fingers. Careful not to leave any holes or your batter will spill out of the crust and we don't want that. Bake at 325 for 8 minutes.

This is 3/4 cup of strawberry puree and a package of cream cheese.

This is the finished batter. Tricks: use room-temp ingredients and don't put air into the batter, it's not about vigorous mixing, more of a folding action. Of course, if you have a mixer it will do the trick, but my arm is my mixer.

Pour the batter into your crusted pan and then it's time to get fancy! I dropped the other 3/4 cup of puree over the batter to make amazing patterns by running a knife around the blobs, all while imagining myself on ace of cakes.

Psychedelicious, man!

The prize, fresh out of the oven 1 hour 25 minutes later.

The morning after a good night's sleep in the fridge. This is when the casserole lid came in handy.

It barely cracked, booyeah!


This is by no means a healthy or low calorie desert, but I tend to give my cheesecakes as gifts so as not to overeat them! This cake tasted exactly like the cheesecake version of strawberry ice cream. While it cooked Rocky said " this is what heaven must smell like!"

courgette cauliflower leek potato soup

Hello comrades. Long time no see me eat. I made a soup a while back with great results, easy peasy, have a look!

The zukes were dying, time for soup! Chop that shizz up. Cauliflower, zuke, leek, garlic, onion and the humble potato coalescing for your pleasure.


In case you were wondering, this is about 2 glugs of olive oil. Glug = about a tablespoon.

Your hero hard at work. Blog time.

Veggies get softened in the olive oil until they are steamy and fragrant. Then I threw in half a can of coconut milk and about 4 mugs of veggie broth. Cook for 20 minutes or so. Next step (not pictured) involves ladling the soup into the blender and pureeing.

You will also make this face if you try my soup recipe. I guaran-frikkin-tee.

Random breakfast shot! Ask me about those potatoes. They practically reveal the secrets of the universe they're so good.

epic one-pot extravaganza

So the vegan eating is going pretty well, but I was craving mussels and salmon while basking in the hot pools at the spa this weekend. There was much discussion about what I couldn't wait to do once we got home to make a food fantasy into reality. This strikes a chord as to why I think I like cooking so much. There is something amazing about imagining something then making it happen. Dreams come true kind of stuff. Yummy yummy dreams.
My sous-chef cleaned these off very well. The mussels need a good rinse so you can discard any with broken shells and the already opened ones. They're dead. Wow this is so not vegan.

Can't go wrong with some plum tomatoes and sliced garlic.

Threw some chopped celery, onions, fresh basil and oregano and that there is garlic butter. Topped the whole thing with a big glug of white wine and some tomato juice. Covered it and shoved it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes.

Here's what we ate while it cooked:
It was my dinner companion's maiden voyage on the good ship artichoke. He described them as "interesting" a bunch of times. I think he liked them. We steamed them until tender then served them with two dressings: a vinaigrette with port wine vinegar, and melted butter mixed with a teaspoon of lime juice. I love artichokes. What other food gives you more on the plate when you're finished eating than when you began?


Next, we moved on to the salad course. Not just any old salad though. Grilled halloumi salad.


Apparently the trick is to start with a cold pan.

Finally the mussels were done. They had a nice smooth texture from being baked.

Under all those mussels was a glorious mess of fish and veg. Glorious, I tell you!



A meta-blog moment. Brought to you by wine.

vegan shepherd's pie

I've decided to make a vegan diet my priority for 2011. I figure it'll force me to be more creative in the kitchen, and creativity is always a good thing. Here's hoping that creativity will spill over into other areas of my life.

I wanted the "meat" part of the dish to taste as meaty as possible so I used tourtiere, or meat pie spices in the lentils such as cloves, garlic, cinnamon, and pepper. Overall, I was pretty impressed.

Here's what I used:

-3 handfuls of brown lentils
-1 handful TVP (textured vegetable protein)
-a cube of miso stock
-a squirt of tomato paste
-a squirt of Bragg amino liquid or soy sauce
-bay leaves

To make the lentils, simply throw them in a pot with the stock cube and bay leaves. Cover with a good 2 inches of water and boil away, making sure that they don't dry out. Once they are tender, add the TVP and tomato paste and mix well. Set aside.

Now you want to add veg and bulk to the lentils. I used celery, carrot, garlic, onion, peas and corn, but use whatever you have on hand and chop everything to a similar small size so that everything cooks evenly. I sauteed these ingredients until just tender in some coconut oil, and seasoned with herbes de provence and tourtiere spices.

Cut nice and uniformly.
If you ask me for cooking advice, more often than not, I will tell you to start by frying an onion. I then added the carrot and celery, then combined the veg with the lentil mix.

Meanwhile, you want to get your tater tots going for the top of the pie. I jazzed things up with a sweet potato. Tastes awesome and looks great instead of the plain anemic looking white potato.

These were ready to sprout, thus ready to be cooked.

Boil them suckers up real good. I threw in a few cloves of garlic into the water to add a nice garlicky touch. Once the potatoes are tender, rinse and mash. Don't forget the holy trinity of unsweetened soy milk, coconut oil, and salt.

Layer the bottom half of your casserole dish with the lentils, then spread the potatoes on top. I suppose you could add some parmesan cheese or spices before cooking, but I kept it simple.
Throw that into the oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Done!
Mmm extreme closeup.

Tastes great with a wee side of ketchup.

So does anybody read this blog thingy? Do you have ideas you would like me to try in my kitchen? Need advice on a specific recipe or vegetable? Let me know.

Happy eating!

chili's dead easy

I'm still thinking about food! Don't worry, I haven't starved, it's just that life got in the way there for a bit but 2011 has arrived with my new resolve to continue documenting my food adventures.

Here is an extremely quick, healthy, inexpensive chili that can be made and frozen in batches. In fact, I made this chili a few weeks ago and have been enjoying round two from the freezer today.

The ingredients in question: basically whatever veggies you have on hand will work well. I like to make sure I have corn and peppers in the chili, something about those veggies really scream chili to me. Also key are two onions, not one but two. Trust. Get yourself some chili powder and some cumin powder and you're sure to have a chili-rific time.

Oh look! Opened cans.

Rinse those canned beans well. Otherwise...well, you know the rhyme. Beans beans the musical fruit!

Choppity chop.

Please note that frozen blob is veggie ground beef. No need to add it in unless you've got some already. Mine was languishing in the freezer so in it went.

Unfortunately I probably got distracted at this point in the cooking process to accurately document it, but chili is basically soup. Soften your onions in a good glug of olive oil, then add in the veg and beans, cook until almost tender. Add the canned tomatoes and super secret ingredient: a bottle of beer! Throw in some spoonfuls of chili powder but make sure you know how spicy your chili powder is. Taste it first to check. You'll need a good teaspoon of cumin powder as well. Keep tasting and season with salt.

Always happy days in the kitchen!

And in homage to 2010, here are my top ten food memories of the past year.

10. Making my own quiche.
9. Baking a kick ass b-day cheesecake in a round casserole dish with epic chocolate graham crust. Thanks for your advice, Yoshi!!
8. Nervously preparing mango salad to impress.
7. Discovering, to the detriment of my waistline and vegetarianism, BBQ pork buns.
6. Popcorn with nutritional yeast and cayenne.
5. Summer rolls in the sweltering heat with peanut sauce. Made them like 3 days in a row.
4. Smoothies! Hello blender, you are wonderful.
3. Oysters and mussels as a snack just because. Even purchased an oyster knife.
2. Restaurant Mahli for some serious Indian with LJ.
1. Cuisine Dependance b-day meal: sea bass with chorizo risotto and some sort of amazing truffle mousse sauce, followed by an orange sponge cake with orange syrup and chocolate ganache. Minervois to drink. Bliss!

Happy New Year food lovers! Hope this year is even tastier than the last. Life certainly is sweet.

the ease of quiche

I never realized how easy and delicious quiche is. You can even make it with limited cognitive functioning after a big night out whereby one may or may not have taken over an (imagined) dance floor while the jukebox in a shed-like local tavern pumped out one's musical selections ranging from Salt-N-Peppa to Steve Miller. So yeah, it's easy.

First, get out of bed.

Get yourself the items you would like to quiche-ify.

In this case, we've got leek and cauliflower. Wait, what else can make this even more delicious?

You gotta cheese it up, baby. Added some tomatoes for good measure.

Six eggs and almost a whole small sized thingy of 15% cream goes into the quiche liquid. Also, our friends salt and pepper (not the band) and some cayenne to taste.

Lay out your chopped ingredients into some store-bought crusts. Don't be shy, fill 'em up. Then, pour the egg and cream mixture over the veg and cheese. Now comes the hardest part: carrying them and carefully placing them without spilling, into the oven. Bake for 15 minutes at 425 degrees, then reduce the heat to 300 degrees and let the quiches continue to cook for another 30 minutes or until they look and feel firm enough to eat.

Meta-blog!

This is how the magic happens.

The blogger and the blogged.

Oh yes.

Blogaversary Video

So, this Thanksgiving marked a year since the inception of Think About Food.

My brother documented this year's thanksgiving at my parents' house. Good times were had by all.

Stay tuned, I have news of the beets, made some delicious baked lentils, quiche and chili.

I hope it's going to be tasty around here for a long time.

xo

Thanksgiving with the family, 2010 from Rob Roy on Vimeo.