Passionfruit Baked Cheesecake

This is my first attempt at a cheesecake of any kind - so bear with me :)

Thanks to our tiny oven, this cake cooked in half the time it should have, but also overcooked a little and ended up a bit dry. Next time I shall be paying more attention!

The topping is made with cornflour, but you can substitute gelatine if you like.

Passionfruit Baked Cheesecake

Pastry:

1 packet butternut snap biscuits

1/2 cup melted butter

1tsp cinammon

1tbs wholemeal flour 

Cheesecake filling: 

500gm cream cheese, pressed through a sieve

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1tsp vanilla extract

1tbs lemon juice

1/4 cup passionfruit juice

Topping:

Pulp from approximately 8 passionfruit
1/4 cup sugar
2 Kiwifruits, peeled and sliced
1 tsp cornflour in 1/2 cup water

Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees celcius. Crush butternut snap biscuits until resembling fine breadcrumbs. Mix with melted butter, cinnamon and flour. Press onto the bottom and sides of a 9" pan. Cook for 10 minutes then cool.

Sieve room temperature cream cheese through a colander or strainer. In a seperate bowl, mix eggs, sugar and vanilla. Add to the cream cheese and beat well. Add lemon and passionfruit juices. Beat for approximately 5 minutes until smooth. Pour into prepared biscuit base.
Bake for 1 hour, or until top starts to turn golden. Leave in oven to cool with door open.

When cake is cooled, put passionfruit pulp and sugar into a saucepan. Bring to simmer. Add the cornflour in water and mix well. Keep stirring until boiled and then boil for approximately 2 minutes until glaze is thick and clear. Let cool for 10 minutes.
Spread a layer of glaze on cooled cake. Arrange sliced kiwifruit on top then top with rest of glaze.
Set aside to cool for an hour.
Place cake covered, in fridge overnight before serving.

Lentil and Silverbeet parcels

 

Just another one of those things that I invented off the top of my head... It started with Mum forgetting to bring Spanakopita last week, then to my partner talking about making Spanakopita, then to me turning it into pumpkin and ricotta triangles because we had been eating too much spinach (palak paneer for 5 days anyone?) Then scrapping the ricotta for lentils... guh.

I had to add silverbeet, because I like it more than spinach ;)

Lentil and Silverbeet parcels

3 sheets puff pastry - cut into quarters and kept cold.

1/3 jap pumpkin, 1cm cubes

1 bunch silverbeet, trimmed of stalk and roughly chopped

1 tin lentils, drained and rinsed thoroughly

2 soft tomatoes, diced

1 onion, finely diced

5 cloves garlic, finely chopped

mustard seeds

cumin seeds

paprika powder

curry powder 

salt and pepper 

garam masala and dried chopped garlic to garnish

In a large frypan, sautee onion and garlic in olive oil. Add mustard and cumin seeds and fry until popping. Put in cubed pumpkin and cook for about 10 minutes stirring occasionally to lightly caramelise.

Add silverbeet, paprika and curry powder. Cook for 3 minutes stirring frequently.

Add drained lentils. Cook for 2 minutes. Add tomatoes, salt and pepper and cook a further 5 minutes until mixture is 'dry' 

(the tomatoes will make the mixture a bit watery upon addition, which will make the pastry soggy when baking. When the mix is no longer watery, it is ready.)

Spoon 1 to 1.5 tablespoons of mixture into centre of each pastry quarter. Fold up diagonal ends and place onto oiled tray. Use extra pastry trimmings to make a small button and place in the centre. 

Spray each parcel with oil. Top with a sprinkle of garam masala powder and dried chopped garlic.

Bake at 180 degrees for approximately 30 minutes until golden brown - check after 20 minutes to ensure they cook evenly.

Makes 10.

Sweet Potato and Legume Salad

Im on a bit of a salad kick at the moment - Every dinner this week has been salad. I think they make great dinners as they are easy, light and satisfying without being too heavy.

This one has a lovely interplay of colours and textures, as well as lots of filling legume protein!

1 small sweet potato, diced 1cm cubes
350gms sugar snap peas, cut in half
1/2 red onion, sliced finely
1 punnet mini romas, halved
1 tin champignons, drained and cut in half
1/2 large avocado, diced thick
1 tin lentils
1 tin 5 bean mix
3 tsp chopped garlic
2 tsp seeded mustard
a dash of lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
macadamia nut oil to drizzle

Boil diced sweet potato until tender. Pour lentils and Bean mix into strainer, pour on the pot contents of the sweet potato. Rinse it all with cold water till sweet potato is cold.

Put everything into a big salad bowl. Add salt, pepper and lemon juice, toss till well mixed. Drizzle with Macadamia nut oil. 

Serves 4 as a meal, or 6 as a side salad.

Gnocchi with Pesto and Spinach

It was my last day of practicals for the year... Well... For my entire undergraduate actually! 

I had a hankering for some gnocchi ever since I saw someone, somewhere at some point in time in the last week made some in a delicious looking soupy tomato based sauce. It was probably on a blog - You know, the ones I read when I've got a study break (i.e. procrastinating...*sigh*)

I didnt feel like the heavy tomato based sauce today, as we had pasta a few days ago, but I did want something that would go down pretty well with a glass of red. Enter Pesto - stage left!

All the pesto at the shops looked crap, so I bought two bunches of Basil and made my own. 

Gnocchi with Pesto and Spinach 

1 pack of potato gnocchi

4 tbs pesto

1/2 bunch spinach, roughly chopped

a few egg tomatoes, halved

Shaved parmesan

Olive oil for drizzling

Salt and pepper to taste

To make the pesto: wash and roughly pick leaves from 2 bunches of basil. Use a hand mixer or food processor to chop finely. Add fresh garlic cloves to taste (I used about 4) add a bit of salt and pepper and olive oil. Store in a clean jar with a thin layer of olive oil.  

Cook gnocchi as per packet instructions. 

Toss through pesto, sprinkle spinach add tomatoes to taste. Add shaved parmesan. Liberally sprinkle with olive oil and add salt and pepper to taste. 

Stuffed Banana Chillies

This was the first blog-worthy dish I cooked in our new house - A bit lagged on the posting though!

Our stove is annoying, and our oven tiny, but we have a fabulous kitchen with tons of space and a beautiful treed outlook. I have been cooking so much and experimenting with new ingredients and flavours... Its nice to have a kitchen big enough to share cooking :)

A trip to Charlies Fruit Market in Everton Park took me across some red banana chillies which were on clearance - they looked really quite fresh and for $O.85, who could say no?




Stuff 'em, Cook 'em and eat them for the rest of the week - they were delicious cold too!

Stuffed Banana Chillies

1/2 kg Banana Chillies - topped and de-seeded. slit down middle is easiest.
1 cup white calrose rice
250gms fetta cheese
1 small onion, diced finely
dried mint
dried dill
salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil
2 cans of diced tomatoes

Boil rice in enough water to make sticky/gluggy rice. set aside to cool.
Crumble fetta into cooled rice. add herbs and spices and diced onion. mix well.
Stuff chillies with rice mixture, leaving them open at the top with some rice showing.
Pour tomatoes into a baking dish, arrange chillies on top. Drizzle with olive oil.
Bake in a 180 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until chillies are softening and rice is staring to brown.

Green Beans and Tomato with Yoghurt (Fasolakia Fresca)

This is a dish very similar to "Fasolakia lathera" or green bean casserole which is made during fasting times in greece. The base ingredients are the same, but with some very important changes:

Instead of olive oil being the oily ingredient, I like to use butter and a bit of ghee - gives it a much different flavour
I also like to include various spices which aren't usually used in the greek version - these can be curry powder, garam masala, zataar (lebanese wild thyme seasoning) or basil depending on what sort of flavour I am trying to create.
I like to eat it with yoghurt - plain greek yoghurt is best.

Today, I felt like using some zataar - seeing as how I have a kilo of it needing to be used!

Fasolakia Fresca - Green Beans and Tomato with Yoghurt

500gm fresh green beans, topped and halved. Good quality frozen beans can be used.
2 tins of tomatoes
one large onion, diced
chopped garlic to taste (I used about 4 cloves)
1tbs butter
1/2 tbs ghee
1 tomato tin of water
2-3 tbs zataar
Paprika to taste
Chilli to taste
Salt to taste
Black pepper to taste


Sautee the onions and garlic in the butter and ghee. Add green beans and stir for 2 minutes.
Add tinned tomatoes and water.


Stir well and let simmer for 5 minutes. Add the spices and salt to taste. (For different flavours, try using curry powder or lots of chilli!)


Stir well and let simmer for 15 minutes or until beans are starting to soften - you want the beans firm but not too crunchy. If using frozen beans, halve the cooking time.


Serve over fluffy basmati rice with yoghurt on the side. Serves 6!!

Red lentil and rice soup

When its chilly outside, there is nothing quite like a warm soup to soothe the soul.

This is a very old favourite of mine - Mum used to make this for us as children but she would call it "curds and whey". The nursery rhyme similarities ended there - but we ate it. I suppose it sounds better than lentils and rice... hehehe ;)

Very simple to make, and takes next to no time to cook (took me about 15 minutes) I assume this would be a lovely dish for a slow cooker too, as its already set and (practically) forget on the stovetop - slow cooking would be ideal! This also tastes delicious cold for lunch the next day.

Red lentil and Rice soup

1 Medium onion, finely diced

2 cloves garlic, finely diced

1.5 cups red lentils

3/4 cup calrose rice

4-5 cups water (depending on consistency)

salt to taste

chilli to taste

Put everything into a good pot, cover with water to about 2cm over. Cook over a moderate heat until lentils start to cook. Add more water if it starts to get too dry. Stir occasionally.

Add salt to taste, add chilli to taste. Add water to a hearty consistency and make sure rice is cooked but not soggy.

Serve!