2006 March : thefroth.com

Mar

No bake Chocolate Cheesecake

I made this for my birthday and it was seductive and enticing.

Because it is easy to make, it doesn’t mean it is harmless. When people ask me “is it too fattening?” I simple answer “it doesn’t have any added sugar”. And it really doesn’t. What does it need sugar for? But I have another question: Who HASN’T woken up in the night to eat nutella from a jar? The winner gets a jar of pickled cucumbers.

You’ll need

350 gr digestive biscuits

200 gr butter

200 ml double cream

200 gr cheese cream

100 gr chocolate with 70% solids, melted (see note on how to melt it)

400 gr nutella or other chocolate spread

Cocoa powder

Crumble the biscuits in a blender, put them in a bowl, add butter, whisk using a mixer until everything comes together. Line a tart mould with the biscuit-butter mixture and pat until it is uniformly spread. Refrigerate for 45 minutes. Put cheese, double cream, nutella, melted chocolate and 2-3 tablespoons of cocoa powder, in a mixer bowl and whisk everything (best with an electric whisk) until smooth. Taste the mixture to see if you want it bitterer. I usually do. The more cocoa powder you add, the bitterer it becomes. Spread it out on the tart shell and put it in the freezer for 30 minutes or until the filling looks solid. You can simply refrigerate it but it’ll take longer. But if you are going to forget it in the fridge, then do refrigerate it! Before you serve, sprinkle with some cocoa powder.

Note: How to melt the chocolate

Place pieces of chocolate in a bowl (not a plastic one). Place the bowl in a pan. Fill pan with water and place on low heat. Allow chocolate to melt and don’t cover. When most of the chocolate has melted, stir until smooth.

You can do it in the microwave oven: Place pieces of chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and microwave at medium power (50 percent) for 1 1/2 to 4 minutes, until the chocolate turns shiny. Remove the container from the microwave and stir the chocolate until completely melted.

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Appetizers

Mushroom tartelettes

This recipe happened only because I had a spare pastry sheet in the fridge. But it was a success so it might become a classic. Where classic means, the food I prepare when I feel insecure and doubt my abilities and want to make something secure.

It takes no time at all, although the pious are going to want to make their own pastry, which I am all for, but we’ll discuss it some other time.

For 6-8 people as a starter

2 eggs

160 gr crumbled feta cheese

400 gr sliced button mushrooms

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

1 sheet puff pastry (if you like puffy things) or 1 sheet shortcrust pastry (if you want less air, more food)

3 spring onions, chopped

Some butter for the baking dish

Salt and pepper

Whisk the eggs and add the feta. Heat olive oil in a skillet and sautee onions. Add mushrooms and when they are cooked but still al dente, combine in a bowl with the eggs and feta. Sprinkle with pepper. If your feta is very salty don’t add any more salt. Butter a 12 cup muffin pan (if you have a larger one, you’ll need more pastry and more of everything else) and roll out the pastry. We don’t want the pastry to have holes, so carefully, we press it inside the cups. When we are done, we separate the pastry with a knife, so that each cup is individually lined. Fill with the mushroom mixture and arrange the extra pastry around, so that it encloses but doesn’t cover the filling. Don’t be too religious about it (as the photo testifies, I wasn’t). Bake in preheated oven at 180 C/ 350 F/ Gas mark 4 until the pastry looks golden and the filling has set.

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Main Courses

Pasta Power

“Life is a combination of magic and pasta."

Federico Fellini

My favourite scene from my favourite movie Lost in Translation, is the one where Bob (Bill Murray) realizes that the situation with his wife is rather irreversible and tries to tell her so on the phone, while he is soaking in the jacuzzi of the Japanese hotel. So he starts by telling her that something has to change but then chickens out and ends up saying “I don’t know. I just want to get healthy. I would like to start taking better care of myself. I’d like to start eating healthier – I don’t want all that pasta. I would like to start eating like Japanese food.” Yes, blame it on the pasta Bob. When I am stressed or worn out, I want to eat pasta. The ideal would be to make my own pasta (although, not penne, that would be a miracle in itself) but when I am tired, the last thing I want to do is make dough. Or maybe not. It might turn out to be soothing.

Baked penne with spinach and cheese

4-5 servings

1 packet penne

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 spring onions, chopped

2 garlic cloves, chopped

3 tablespoons chopped fennel

500 gr chopped spinach

230 gr gruyere cheese, grated

300 ml single cream

120 gr feta cheese, crumbled

10-15 green olives sliced

Cook pasta in salted, boiling water. In a pan, heat olive oil and sauté onions and garlic. Add spinach and fennel and cook until the vegetables are tender. In a baking dish, combine penne and spinach. Add gruyere cheese and crumbled feta. Mix everything very well together. Bake in 180 C/350 F/Gas Mark 4 until all cheeses have melted and the food has a nice golden colour. Sprinkle each dish with sliced olives and serve hot.

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Dessert

No bake Chocolate Cheesecake

Appetizers

Mushroom tartelettes

Main Courses

Pasta Power