no-bake cheesecake

I don’t know why I haven’t been making more no-bake cheesecakes in my life! I have made more cheesecakes than I can count and I know basically every trick in the book for getting cheesecakes to bake up just right.  But this was just so damn easy!!!  And while not like a baked cheesecake, I think it’s just as delicious – just different.  The filling is much lighter and mousse-like and just lightly sweetened. Nothing wrong with that.

I decided to make this today because for the first time since we moved to Saudi, I found bricks of real cream cheese!  (All that’s ever been available is the spreadable form of cream cheese in tubs.)  This is adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Cherry Cheesecake recipe and it is just so easy and soooo delicious.  Just note that while I’ve already made a more substantial crust, this recipe doesn’t yield the tallest cheesecake.  Which we’re totally happy with but if you want a tall/deep cheesecake like say New York-style, then I would suggest you double the ingredients for the filling.

Crust: 250 grams digestive biscuits or graham crackers / 150 grams (6 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted

Filling: 300 grams (10 oz) cream cheese, room temperature (the kind in brick form, not in a tub) / 60 grams (1/2 cup) icing sugar / 1 tsp vanilla extract / 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice (which I forgot – oops!) / 1 cup heavy or whipping cream

Optional topping: 3 cups of strawberries, hulled / 2 tbsp granulated sugar

Blitz the digestive crackers or graham crackers until they’re crumbs in either a blender or food processor.  Add in the melted butter and pulse to combine.

Press the crust mixture into the bottom of an 8 inch springform pan.

Pop into the fridge just to chill and let it set up a bit while you move onto the filling.  Beat together the cream cheese, icing sugar, vanilla and lemon juice until smooth.  I used the paddle attachment on my stand mixer because I’m lazy but you could always just do it by hand.

In a separate bowl, whip the cream until you get medium peaks. (Nigella’s recipe said to just “lightly whip” but I figured medium peaks was a good middle ground.)  Again I used my stand mixer with the whisk attachment but you could just whisk it by hand.

Using a spatula, gently fold the whipping cream by hand into the cream cheese mixture until everything is combined and smooth.

Gently spoon the filling onto the crust and spread evenly.

Cover with clingfilm and chill and set in the fridge for minimum 3 hours or overnight. (I obviously went with the bare minimum.)

If you want you can have the cheesecake on it’s own. Or you can top it with some macerated strawberries.  The shop was completely out of fresh strawberries so I used some defrosted frozen ones – not ideal but still did the trick. Simply mix the strawberries with the sugar and let it sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes.  I piled up most of the strawberries on top of the cheesecake with some extra on the side but you can do whatever you’d like obviously.  Slice up and enjoy!

 

 

thai turkey and zucchini meatballs

Life is so hectic nowadays with both a baby and a toddler that I keep f***ing up while following recipes.  Luckily, things still usually turn out and this is one of those instances.  This is adapted from Nigella Lawson’s recipe for Thai turkey meatballs and it’s adapted because I straight up f***ed up the original recipe.  Basically, I put waaay more zucchini in the meatballs – hence I’m calling these turkey and zucchini meatballs – than the recipe calls for as most of the zucchini was actually supposed to be sliced up and added to the sauce. I was worried the meatballs would fall apart and the whole thing would be a disaster but it turned out really well and we all loved it!  Whew.

(We’re still cooking Whole30 for Rock but I’m not 100% strict about using ‘compliant’ ingredients if getting them makes my life 100% harder.  But if you are strict about it, you can use homemade chicken stock and crazy expensive compliant fish sauce.)

3 zucchini  /  1 lb ground turkey  /  3 stalks of green onion  /  1 clove garlic, minced  /  1 and 1/2 tsp grated ginger  /  small bunch of cilantro, chopped  /  1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes  /  zest and juice of 1 lime  /  1 tsp sea salt flakes or salt to taste  /  1 tsp grapeseed oil  /  3 tbsp Thai green curry paste  /  1 (14 oz) can coconut milk  / 2 cups chicken broth  /  3 tbsp fish sauce  /  a large handful of sugar snap peas  /  optional: limes cut into wedges & small handful of Thai basil leaves to serve

To make the meatballs, trim the ends of the zucchini and coarsely grate onto a piece of paper towel.  Squeeze out as much water as you can from the grated zucchini and toss into a large bowl.  Finely chop the white parts of the green onion and add that along with the ground turkey to the bowl.  Next, add the garlic, ginger, 2 tbsp of the cilantro, crushed red pepper flakes, lime zest and salt to the bowl.  Using your hands, mix the meatball mixture just until everything is combined.

To measure out the meatballs, use a heaping teaspoonful for each one and then simply roll into balls.  You’ll end up with about 30 meatballs.

Finely chop up the green parts of your green onion.  Heat up the oil in a large dutch oven or lidded pan and give chopped green onion a quick fry.  Add the curry paste and then the coconut milk, chicken broth and fish sauce.  Let the sauce come to a boil and then gently drop the meatballs into the soup.  Drop them in going around the dutch oven in a circle going from the outside inward.  I was worried they wouldn’t all fit in but they did!

Let the sauce come to a boil again and then slap the lid on and turn the heat down to a simmer.  Let it simmer for about 20 minutes and check that the meatballs are cooked through.  Add the snap peas and the juice of the one lime.  I didn’t do this but if you want you can serve with some Thai basil and lime wedges.

 

 

cauliflower and cashew curry

I’m going to be trying out lots of new recipes this month because Rock is doing the Whole30 meal program!  Our friend recommended it so he’s giving it a shot… while I happily sit this one out.  There’s TONS of stuff you cannot eat including dairy, ALL grains, ALL sweeteners, legumes… even stuff like soy sauce and quinoa isn’t allowed.  Talk about a challenge!  So I’ve been sifting through my cookbooks looking for recipes that don’t include any of these forbidden foods, while also still being something I would actually like to eat, and I found this recipe in Nigella Lawson’s Simply Nigella book.  It turned out really yummy!  She calls it a “Multi-Culti Curry” as it combines Thai and Indian flavours. Aymeric and I had it with some naan bread but you could also serve it with rice.  Rock ate it with some baby potatoes (potatoes are Whole30 at least!)

Serves 2 as a main dish.

1 medium-sized head of cauliflower, cut into florets  /  2 bay leaves  /  2 tsp sea salt flakes or salt to taste  /  1 tbsp coconut oil  /  2 green onions, thinly sliced  /  2 tsp minced ginger  /  seeds from 3 cardamom pods (which I couldn’t find so I substituted roughly 1/3 tsp ground cardamom)  /  1 tsp cumin seeds  /  1 tbsp finely chopped cilantro stalks  /  1/4 cup Thai red curry paste  /  1 can (14 oz) coconut milk  /  2/3 cup cashews  /  1 lime  /  small handful of chopped cilantro

In a large saucepan, bring water to a boil.  Add the salt, bay leaves and the cauliflower florets; cooking them until they are just tender – about 4 to 5 minutes.  In the meantime, add the coconut oil, green onion, ginger, cardamom, cumin and cilantro stalks to a wok or large lidded pan over medium heat and cook for about a minute.

Add the curry paste to the wok and then the coconut milk.  Stir it all together and bring it to a boil.  When the cauliflower is cooked, drain and add to the wok.  Give it a stir and you can add more salt to taste if you want.  Slap on the lid and turn down the heat to a simmer and let it cook away for about 10 minutes.  In the meantime, just give the cashews a light toasting in a small frying pan.

Stir in half of the cashews to the curry.  Then to serve, simply plate up along with the lime cut into wedges and scatter over the rest of the cashews and the chopped cilantro.  Enjoy!

nigella’s dark and sumptuous chocolate cake

This is the second cake I made for Rock’s birthday and the one he specifically requested.  Rock’s had it on his brain ever since we saw Nigella Lawson make it on an episode of her television show, Simply Nigella.  It probably has something do with how she describes it as a ‘cake and frosting of such depth and fudginess’ that it ‘confounds’ and ‘delights’ her.  This cake is actually a vegan cake, though you honestly would never know it, and it really was sooooo good.  It really is dark and fudgy and sumptuous. I don’t think I’ve ever described anything as sumptuous before but this cake totally is that.  I think this may be Rock’s favourite chocolate cake now.  Just a note, the cake is supposed to have pistachios and rose petals scattered over top, which indeed looks amazing, but I skipped this step.

frosting:  1/4 cup cold water  /  5 tbsp coconut butter (or regular unsalted dairy butter which is what I used so my cake wasn’t actually vegan but that’s OK since we’re not vegan!)  /  1/4 cup brown sugar  /  1 and 1/2 tsp instant espresso powder  /  1 and 1/2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder  /  6 oz bittersweet chocolate (I couldn’t find any so I subbed with semi-sweet chocolate), chopped up

cake:  1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour  /  1 and 1/2 tsp baking soda  /  1/2 tsp fine sea salt  /  1 and 1/2 tsp instant espresso powder  /  3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder  /  1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar  /  1 and 1/2 cups boiling hot water  /  6 tbsp coconut oil  /  1 and 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar  /  1 tbsp edible rose petals (optional)  /  1 tbsp chopped pistachios (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350F and line the bottom of a round springform cake pan with parchment paper.  The recipe calls for a 8 inch pan but I only have 9 inch ones and it worked just fine.  First is the frosting so that it has time to cool down before you frost your cake.  Put all of the ingredients for the frosting except for the chocolate into a saucepan over medium-high heat and bring the mixture to a boil.  Turn off the heat and add the chopped up chocolate, letting the chocolate melt down.  Give it a bit of a whisk and then set the frosting aside to cool.  You can give it a little stir every now and again while you work on the cake.

Now onto the cake!  In a large mixing bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, salt, instant espresso and cocoa powder.  In a separate bowl, mix together the sugar, water, vinegar and coconut oil until the coconut oil has completely melted.  Stir the wet mixture into the dry until everything is combined and then pour into your cake pan.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or when the cake is pulling away from the edges of the pan and an uncooked spaghetti noodle comes out of the centre pretty much dry.  Let the cake cool in its pan on a wire cooling rack and once it’s done cooling, you can frost it.

Take the cake out of the pan and pour the frosting over the cake, using a spatula to spread it evenly to the sides.  If you want, sprinkle with the pistachios and rose petals or just leave it be.  Let the frosted cake stand for at least 30 minutes so that the frosting can set before serving.

The cake can be stored in an airtight container for up to 5 days.  Ours was unsurprisingly all polished off in 1 day.

oven-roasted döner kebab

Rock and I are obsessed with the döner kebabs we had from this little kebab place that we had stumbled upon near our airbnb flat in the Friedrichschain district when we were in Berlin last year.  Thinly shaved chicken döner, veggies, feta (I think?) cheese, and delicious mystery sauces all sandwiched in toasted Turkish pide bread. Best. Thing. Ever.  We didn’t even know the name of the place we had those kebabs at but a google search shows it up as Döner Dach on yelp and seeing photos of those kebabs, oh man.

For literally months now, I’d google döner kebabs every so often (is that weird?), trying to find a good recipe for Berlin-style kebabs but I could never find anything that seemed like it’d live up to the ones we had.  And of course, we don’t have a giant rotating spit so it had to be a recipe that we could actually make.  Anyway, we recently discovered Nigella Lawson’s recipe for oven-roasted chicken shawarma and it is first of all delicious, but more importantly, it tastes very close to the chicken döner we had in Berlin.  It is also terribly easy!  (According to my not-so-vigorous research, döner is Turkish and shawarma is Arabic but they are very similar if not the same.  Don’t quote me on that though.)  I made this chicken for the second time last night and our friends who are from Germany gave it their ‘tastes like a German döner’ seal of approval, so yay!

For the chicken: 12 boneless and skinless chicken thighs  /  2 lemons  /  7 tbsp olive oil  /  6 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced  /  2 dried bay leaves  /  2 tsp paprika  /  2 tsp ground cumin  /  1 tsp ground coriander  /  1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes  /  1/4 tsp ground cinnamon  /  1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg  /  2 tsp sea salt

For an accompanying sauce (adapted from Nigella’s recipe):  2/3 cup plain yogurt  /  1/3 cup mayonnaise  /  1/4 cup tahini  /  2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced  /  sea salt to taste

Put the chicken thighs in a large freezer ziplock bag (or any large resealable bag).  Grate in the lemon zest and then squeeze in the lemon juice.  Add the olive oil, garlic and all of the spices for the chicken.  Zip closed the bag and mush everything together so that the chicken is all well-coated with the marinade.  Plop the bag into a large bowl or onto a plate and then stick it in the fridge for at least 6 hours or up to 1 day.

About at hour or so before you intend to start cooking, take the chicken out from the fridge to let it come to room temperature.  Preheat the oven to 425F.  Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and pour out the chicken and marinade onto the sheet.  Spread out the chicken thighs so that they are all lying flat and not on top of each other.  Roast for 30 minutes (or until it’s cooked through).

I like to thinly slice the chicken for the sole reason that it reminds me of the thinly shaved chicken you’d find in a proper kebab.

To make the sauce, simply mix all the ingredients together and that’s that.  I served the chicken with the sauce, some shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes, sliced cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, some hunks of feta cheese, some hot sauce, and Rock baked some fresh Turkish pide bread.  The first time we made this, we had it with pitas which was also really good.

You can eat the chicken with just the veggies and sauce but to make a kebab, simply slice open your bread and stuff everything into it!

Though this sauce is delicious, it’s not exactly the same as the mystery sauces that Berlin kebab places serve.  If anyone has recipes for those amazing white and red sauces, please share!

chai muffins

I just made these muffins for a little goûter (afternoon snack!)  They’re quick and easy to whip up and really yummy, especially eaten warm out of the oven.  They’re also just a touch sweet, unlike most muffins you can buy that are more like giant cupcakes masquerading as muffins.  I adapted this from Nigella Lawson’s Simply Nigella.

Makes 12 muffins.

2 chai teabags  /  3/4 cups plus 2 tbsp unsweetened almond milk  (or regular milk) /  1 tsp ground cinnamon  /  2 cups all-purpose flour  /  2/3 cup whole wheat flour  /  2 and 1/2 tsp baking powder  /  3/4 coconut palm sugar (or brown sugar)  /  2 large eggs  /  2/3 cup grape seed oil  /  1/2 cup raw almonds, roughly chopped (optional. I’m not a fan of nuts in things but Rock is so I used 1/4 cup in half the batch)

You’ll also need a 12 cup muffin tin lined with paper baking cup liners.

Preheat your oven to 400F and in a small saucepan over medium heat, start warming up your almond milk.  Stir in the cinnamon and the contents of the teabags and let it steep in the warm milk.  Take off the heat and set it aside to cool.

Now, in a large mixing bowl, combine the flours, baking powder, sugar and (if you’re using them) the chopped almonds, leaving out about a couple tablespoons for sprinkling over the tops later.  Once your milk has cooled down, whisk in the eggs and oil.

Add the liquid mixture to the dry mixture and mix until combined but still a little bit lumpy (apparently lumpy batter = lighter muffins).  Spoon the batter into the lined muffin tin cups and if you’re using the almonds, sprinkle the remaining chopped almonds over top.

Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or until an uncooked spaghetti noodle or a toothpick comes out clean.  Pop out the muffins onto a cooling rack and then eat!  Nigella said let them cool 10 minutes before eating…but we let them cool for more like 2.

 

rock’s post: date scones

Rock’s been on a total scone-baking kick and our go-to is this Nigella Lawson recipe.  They’re nice and light which apparently can be attributed to the addition of cream of tartar.  I’m not sure if dates in scones is a done thing but Rock loves dates and this time around he decided to add some in to experiment.  I didn’t think I particularly liked dates but these were delicious.  Ok, over to Rock.

This one is for my neighbour.  I baked this recipe many time thinking that I already blogged it but no…  I never blogged it…

For 12 scones:

500 grams all-purpose flour  /  1 teaspoon of salt  /  2 teaspoons baking soda  /  4.5 teaspoons of cream of tartar  /  125 g cold unsalted butter, diced  /  300 ml of milk  /  1.5 cup of dates  /  1 egg beaten for egg wash

Pre heat the oven to 450 F.  Chop the dates in small pieces.  Put all the dry ingredient and the dates in a large bowl.  Rub the butter in the dry mix until it becomes like damp sand.  I used the stand mixer with the dough hook.  Add all the milk at once, mix briefly until the dough hold together, turn it on a floured surface and knead it for 5 min.

Roll into a ball and then roll out until the dough in 3 cm thick.  Cut it in 12 equal pieces (like a pizza.  Or if you have a round cutter you can use that).

Place on a baking tray very close together, they will bulge up and will stick together during the cooking.

Brush the tops with the egg-wash.  Bake for 10 min or until all risen and golden.

Eat them warm fresh out of the oven, with jam or butter.  Their are amazing with coffee!

You can substitute the dates with raisin or as Diana likes, with shredded cheddar cheese.  If you want cheese scones, use about 75grams of shredded cheese.  Don’t be greedy like Diana last time with too much cheese because then the texture of the scones is not as good!

Rock’s post: maple pecan bundt cake

The original name for the post was “Julie’s dinner cake” but the administration of the blog did not approved it…  So we were invited to our friend Julie’s for dinner and she requested a cake.  We are doing a lot of cleaning/tidying lately and we found a bundt cake pan.  No need to say that this invitation was the perfect occasion to bake a bundt cake!  This cake is from one of our Nigella Lawson books and has a special maple pecan filling in the middle.

For the maple pecan filling:

75g plain flour / 30g soft unsalted butter / 1 tsp cinnamon / 150g chopped pecans / 125 ml maple sirup

For the cake:

300g plain flour /  1tsp of baking powder / 1tsp bicarbonate of sofa / 125g soft unsalted butter / 150g sugar / 2 eggs / 250ml sour cream / about 1 tsp icing sugar for decoration

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Use a flavour less oil, we use some PAM, to very lightly grease a 23cm bundt cake tin and leave it upside down, the excess of oil will drip away.

To make the filling, mix 75g of flour with 30 g of butter with a fork until you end up with a granola texture mixture.  Then add the cinnamon, the pecan and maple sirup to form a sticky, very tasty paste.  You can set aside.

Now for the cake portion, mix in a bowl 300g of flour, the baking powder and bicarbonate if soda.

Cream the butter and the sugar until  it is light in texture and light in colour.  Then beat in 1 tbsp of the flour mixture, then 1 egg, then another tables spoon full of the flour mixture and the last egg.  Add the remaining of the flour and, finally, the sour cream.  The result is a very thick cake batter.

Now it is time to put the cake together.  Spoon a little bit more than half the batter into the bundt tin.  Spread the mixture up the sides and around the funnel.  We are forming a holding cavity for the filling.  You don’t want any filling to touch the sides of the tin.

With gentle care, set the filling in the rim then cover it with the remaining batter.  Smooth the top and set the cake into the oven for 40 minutes.  We started checking the cake after 35 min with an uncooked spaghetti noodle.  If the spaghetti comes out clean, the cake is ready.

Once cook, let the cake cool for 15 minutes in the tin.  Then loosen the edges with a knife, don’t forget the funnel part!  Now the tricky part, you need to turn the cake out onto the rack.

When the cake is totally cold, dust with the icing sugar with a sifter.

The cake can be made for couple day in advance and it will be just as good!  Just wrap it in plastic wrap and dust with the icing sugar just before eating.

Enjoy

best chocolate chip cookies

I had a real hankering for chocolate chip cookies all week and it was practically like destiny that we would have to make some as an older Nigella Lawson cookbook that I’d ordered had just arrived and it happened to have a chocolate chip cookie recipe in it.  In the book she writes that while chocolate chip cookies are never difficult to make, they’re just difficult to get right and this was her tried and true recipe.  Well alright then!

Makes about 1 and a half dozen cookies.

150 grams room temperature unsalted butter  /  125 g coconut palm sugar (in her recipe she says to use brown sugar but we really wanted to try it with the coconut which is supposedly ‘healthier’ than regular sugars)  /  100 g sugar  /  1 whole egg (that must be cold straight out of the fridge)  /  1 egg yolk (also cold)  /  2 tsp vanilla extract  /  300 g all purpose flour  /  1/2 tsp baking soda  /  1 packet semi-sweet chocolate chips (300 g)

Preheat oven to 350F and line a large baking sheet with either parchment or a silicone baking sheet.  Melt the butter either in the microwave or as Rock did, in a measuring cup which he sat in the sink filled with hot water.  (I thought he did that ‘cus the recipe told him so but apparently it was all his own doing!)  In a mixing bowl, beat together the coconut sugar, regular sugar and melted butter which you have let slightly cool.  Next, beat in the vanilla, egg and egg yolk until creamy.  Now mix in the flour and baking soda but only until it has just all come together and then fold in the chocolate chips.  Use an ice cream scoop (or a 1/4 measuring cup) to measure out and shape the cookies and then space them out on the baking sheet roughly 8 cm apart as they will spread out as they bake.

We baked ours in 2 batches and while the first was baking, we stuck the rest of the dough in the fridge to keep cold.  Bake for about 13 to 15 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are just ever so slightly starting to get golden.  Let the cookies sit on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes and then move them onto a wire cooling rack (though we ate a couple before they made it onto the rack!)  These cookies turned out soooooo good.  And substituting the brown sugar with coconut sugar worked great, which we weren’t really sure if it would.  Yay!  Thanks Nigella!