Two days ago, while I was using StumbleUpon to find new interesting food blogs and articles, I stumbled across Drew Kime’s creamy cheesecake recipe. There are plenty of cheesecake recipes out there, so what’s so cool about this recipe, you ask? It’s the fact that it’s a no-bake recipe, so it’s lighter (if you care about that sort of thing) and definitely easier to make. It basically uses a “mix it, freeze it, eat it” approach.

You can find all the ingredients and directions on the site, so I won’t go into details here. I’ll just say that mine turned out great and it was really delicious, but I made two small mistakes:

• I added a bit too much whipped cream, so I had to keep the cheesecake in the freezer for a bit longer than 2h: I ended up keeping it over night.
• I initially used the right amount of cheese and the mix was really soft. In my effort to compensate for the surplus of whipped cream I added more cheese, changing that smooth texture a bit.
  

I’ll just post some more pictures that would hopefully make you really hungry for cheesecake! I’m having a slice right now, cause I couldn’t resist after looking at the photos again.

First, I used a regular cake baking pan, so after I was able to remove the cheesecake, I went creative and topped it with strawberries and bananas, like so:

Photo moment!

Then I cut myself a slice (first one was more difficult to cut) and went outside to shoot some pictures, as the lighting was perfect! I think they turened out pretty nice. Of course, the neighbors from the appartment building across the street (who have a pretty good view of my back yard) probably said: “Here’s that crazy guy again, taking picture of food!”. Oh well…

Leftover recipes are pretty fun and can sometimes turn into something tasty. I guess it’s probably because you’re mixing ingredients that you wouldn’t mix otherwise. Plus it’s better than reheating the same thing over and over, so you have nothing to lose, right?

For those of you who still have some leftover lamb from Easter, this is a quick and easy recipe (although calling it “recipe” is a bit too much) that I cooked a few days ago.

It all started when I got a sudden craving for mashed potatoes. I remembered I had some sweet potatoes left, after making lime glazed sweet potatoes as a side dish for a bigger plate (I’ll post it soon). I mixed one sweet potato with two regular ones into this really delicious mash and served that with some sweet and nutty lamb pieces.

Here’s how I did it:

Ingredients

• 1 sweet potato and 2 regular ones
• 1 bowl of leftover lamb, cut into bite size pieces
• 1 tbs soy sauce
• 1 tbs fish sauce
• 1 tbs brown sugar
• some fresh dill, finely chopped

How I Did It?

Basic mashed potatoes

I’m pretty sure everyone knows how to make mashed potatoes. My method isn’t special in any way, but here goes: throw some cubed potatoes into boiling water, until they’re easy to crush with a fork, drain water, add a cube of butter and some milk, add salt to taste and start mashing. Serve while it’s hot.

Sweet bits of lamb

First of all, a word of advice: use a non stick frying pan, because it’s so much easier to clean. I just bought one from IKEA recently and I’m telling you: cooking using the right “hardware” is so much easier!

Drizzle a bit of vegetable oil into the heated pan and add the lamb bits. Once they start to change color, add the brown sugar and stir until they look caramelized. Add the soy sauce and fish sauce and keep stirring. Just a few seconds before you turn off the heat, add the fresh dill and stir some more, making sure all the bits are covered.

All this should only take a minute or two, otherwise you risk burning it, cause the sugar melts really fast! It’s a good idea to leave it for another minute or two with a lid on, until you take care of the mashed potatoes.

Add some crunch

I sprinkled some bits of pistachio and almonds that I pulsed with the hand pulser thingie (or whatever that’s called). I had some pistachio from the night before (soccer game night), but you can use whatever you have lying around: pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, whatever. Or not!

Long time (really long actually), no see! I posted my last culinary experience for Christmas, when I made that nice, juicy turkey roast, remember? And now it’s Easter! Well that’s gotta change, so you (if anyone is “listening”) will definitely see more of me and my experiments, both here and on my travel blog.

We’re past the cloudy and rainy days of February, and even though March wasn’t very convincing at letting us know spring is here, April is doing a pretty good job so far. So I’m particularly happy about the nice weather, because now I can really enjoy my favorite way of cooking: barbecue, baby!

Chicken wings, anyone?

I personally wasn’t a big fan of chicken wings (I was more of a chicken drumstick person), but something happened that made me change my mind: I discovered a sweet, delicious marinade! I don’t remember exactly where I picked this up, but I think it has a bit of Robert Rainford in it. Then my wife improvised a bit and made it even better.

I’ll share with our really simple and easy recipe, that might become the only way you ever barbecue chicken wings.

Ingredients:

It’s really up to you what spices you want to add, but the must have ingredients are the yogurt and honey, and maybe your favorite kind of mustard. I prefer a simple, sweet one and you should try to keep it simple as well. Here’s what I generally use:

• about 500g of creamy yogurt
• 2 tbs mustard
• 3 tbs honey
• maybe a few drops of olive oil
• salt and pepper
• some herbs like oregano, basil, mint, etc. (use what you like, fresh is better)
• maybe a bit of paprika or some hot sauce, if you love spicy

How I Did It?

Prep the wings

First you need to prep the chicken wings, by removing the wingtip (not much in it, I sometimes use it as a snack for my dog) and cutting the remaining part into the little drumstick and the flat part of the wing. Or you can leave it whole, your choice. You’ll notice in my photos I have both versions, cause they’re taken on two different occasions.

Mix, shake, marinade

Grab a large bowl and mix the ingredients together. Add the yogurt, mustard, honey and all the other spices and give them a good whisk. Throw the chicken wings in there and keep tossing them for a while, until they’re evenly covered in that delicious sauce.

Put everything in a ziploc bag, make sure you take the air out before you close it, then give it another rub, just to make sure every part of the chicken wings gets a piece of that sauce. What can I say, I’m a perfectionist! If you don’t feel comfortable rubbing the chicken, don’t do it.

Put it in the fridge for at least 1-2h, then go outside and prepare the grill.

Show time!

After you made sure you have enough heat under your grill, grab your bag, take the chicken pieces out and place them on a plate. You can give each of them a shake inside the bag to remove some of the excess sauce, if you feel it’s too much. But don’t dry them or anything, cause that marinade is what it’s all about!

Place all the pieces of chicken on the grill and stick around, as you will need to turn them a few times shortly after. That honey can cause a lot of trouble if left unsupervised. You want your chicken wings glazed, not burned.

There might be some dripping involved, but don’t worry, it perfectly normal. After a few turns, the marinade should stick to the chicken, not the grill and you can leave the pieces for a longer period of time, until you get that nice and brown coloring (not black, alright?). Turn them one last time until they are brown on the other side as well and that’s it!

Here’s a closer look, you can use this as refference!

Sweet, delicious, glazed chicken wings! Super Bowl, Soccer World Cup (if you’re in Europe like I am) or whatever sports event you enjoy… this is the thing to serve! Pop corn who?

P.S. Just realized I’ll need a few more photos for some of the early stages, so I will update later.

Where I’m from, the turkey is just a co-star in the Christmas movie, with the pork being the star of most dishes and products. There’s pork roast, pork on grill and a whole lot of other really delicious pork made products. But I’ll tell you about those later.

Right now I want to share with you a really nice and simple way of roasting a turkey. If you are a long time roast turkey fan (or even a newbie like me), but never had the guts to try it yourself, this post if for you.

First of all, I was always a really fast learner type of guy and from what I noticed, this applies to my cooking skills as well. I’m no Jamie Oliver, that’s for sure, but if I read about (not to mention watch) a new recipe, I can usually make it happen.

With that in mind, I turned to my friend YouTube (as I often do when it comes to new ideas in the kitchen) and found the best and tastiest looking “tutorial” (the geek in me makes me call it this way) for roasting a turkey. Chef John from FoodWishes.com (be sure to check the website, it’s awesome!) does a great job explaining all the steps required to prepare the turkey for roasting. There’s also a really cool video about preparing the perfect turkey gravy.

Ingredients

I didn’t use the exact same ingredients (not that they are hard to find, but I was lazy), but the roast turkey turned out great anyway. Here’s what I used:

• one 4Kg (about 9 pounds) turkey that I bought at a local supermarket
• 1 pack of butter
• fresh basil leaves (instead of fresh sage) and some dry sage
• parsley (instead of the rosemary)
• a couple of cloves of garlic and some fresh ginger (I couldn’t find the five spice mixture)
• carrots and onions, but no celery (some apples might work as well)
• salt, pepper and some poultry seasoning

How I Did It?

I followed the exact directions of the expert chef, from the really cool tip on folding the wings, to the stuffing and buttering. The only difference is I didn’t have a fancy oven where you could set the temperature and I didn’t have a thermometer. So I had to rely on my senses and my gut feeling.

Be sure to use the tin foil in the first half of the cooking, then use some of the juices from the pan to keep the skin moist and prevented it from browning too much.

Check the image of the “convict”, just before taking the heat.

The Result

Considering this is my first turkey roasting experience, I think the end result was great. Not only does it look great, but it tastes great too. And my guests agreed with me and congratulated me for a well done turkey.

But don’t take my word for it. Here are a few more “mug shots”:

Hope you enjoyed my Christmas turkey roasting story. I wish you a Happy New Year and I’ll see you in 2009 with a lot more cooking experiments. Don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed.

Catch you later!