I was getting many video recommendations about this type of cheesecake. So I gave it a go:
Ingredients:
4 big eggs
500g cream cheese
250g double cream
200g sugar (I used 150g)
1 tsp plain flour
Process:
Pre-heat oven at 200C
Mix cream cheese and sugar.
Add eggs and mix
Add double cream and mix
Add flour and mix
Use two wet pieces of baking paper into a round mold.
Pour the mix into the mold
Bake for 40 minutes or until quite brown on top.
Let it cool down for a bit and then put into the fridge for a couple of hours.
The recipe is quite easy and quick. To be honest, it tastes good, even better the next day. Best cheesecake ever? Don’t care, but I need to compare with the cheesecake I used to bake.
To be honest, I dont know how to translate it, but I found the video randomly and gave it a go. Quite happy with the result.
Ingredients:
4 potatoes
1 leek
2 carrots
100 grams of spinach
1 red pepper
4 medium eggs
4 tablespoons of olive oil,
4 tablespoons of milk
4 tablespoons of flour
1/2 pack of baking powder
2 teaspoons salt, peppe
50 grams of grated cheese
Sesame seeds
Process:
1) Slice the leeks, red pepper and spinach. The add the potatoes and carrots grated. Mix all together.
2) In a bowl, whisk the eggs with the oil. Add the flour and whisk. Add the milk and whisk. Add the baking powder and whisk. Add the salt and pepper and whisk.
3) Pour the butter into the veggie try. Mix everything. Try to flat out the mix as much as you can.
4) Put the try in a pre-heat oven at 180C for 25 minutes.
5) Remove from the oven and add the cheese and sesame seeds. Put back in the oven until cheese forms a crust.
6) Remove from oven and let is cool down for a bit. Then cut in squares.
I wanted to make a gnocchi dish for some time. I had a recipe at hand so I went for it. I used this video as a based for the gnocchi
Gnocchi in mushroom and asparagus sauce.
Gnocchi:
1kg of boiled potatoes
2 medium eggs
salt/pepper
20g Parmesan cheese
150g plain flour plus dusting
Mushroom and asparagus sauce:
a couple of garlic cloves
200g mushrooms
150g asparagus
1/2 cup of white wine
1 cup of chicken stock
Parmesan cheese
optional: lemon zest
Gnocchi Process:
1) You can boil or bake the potatoes. Let it cool down a bit until you can manage with your hands. Keep the water for next steps.
2) Put in a bowl, use a potato smasher to break them a bit.
3) Add the eggs, salt, pepper and cheese. Mix a bit .and then
4) Add the flour. You should get a ball. Be sure everything is properly combined.
5) Get a saucepan with boiling water and salt from the first step.
6) In your work surface, dust it with flour, device your dough in several parts. Roll each one until you have a flaute form. Add flour if it sticks too much. Cut them in small pieces
7) Boil the gnocchi until the float. Remove from water and let them cool down in a try (put some olive oil so they dont stick to it)
Sauce Process:
1) Fry the garlic in a sauce pan
2) Add chopped mushrooms and asparagus. Salt and pepper. And other herbs you fancy
3) Once the veggies are fried (medium-high heat), add the wine. It should evaporate quickly and form some brown bits in the pan.
4) reduce heat, add the chicken stock. Stir from time to time until thickens a bit.
5) Add the gnocchi to the sauce, with some pasta water. Be sure they are fully coated.
6) You can fry a bit the gnocchi, be sure there is sauce left!
7) Optional, add a bit of lemon zest.
7) Remove pan from the heat, and let cool down for a bit. Ready to eat!
I was surprised by the gnocchi, they were much better than the ones you buy. It was like small dumplings balls! Very tasty.
3) Add the eggs, one at each time. Only add the next one when is everything is properly combined
4) Add the flour, milk and salt until fully combined. Pour the mix into the baking try.
5) Bake for 20 minutes or until golden. Use a knife and be sure it comes up clean. Set aside to cool down
6) Filling: In a bowl, sift the icing sugar and add the double cream. Mix with a hand blender until thick.
7) Once the sponge is cold, slice it horizontally. In one side, pour the filling (use a spoon through boiling water to help you to spread it easier).
8) On top of the filling, pour the jam, use again the spoon through boiling water.
9) Sandwich the sponge back together. Let is chill in the fridge while preparing the coating.
10) Whisk together the melted butter and milk in a bowl. In other bowl, sieve the cocoa powder and icing sugar. Bit by bit, add the cocoa/sugar mix to the butter mix. Whisk until no lumps.
11) Cut the sponge in squares, dip each square in the cocoa mix until properly coated. Then roll in the desiccated coconut. Put aside.
12) Once all squares are done, sprinkle some more coconut.
13) Let the cocoa coating to settle for 1h. But next day are even better!
Pasta bolognesa was my favourite dish as a kid. We had it I think once every week. Canelones was another big one but my mum didnt cook it that often as it was more time consuming assembling the canelones and preparing the white sauce.
Anyway, I wanted to try the spinach version so I found this recipe that looked nice. I used lasagna sheets cut in two for the canelones and worked nicely.
Ingredients for filling
12 lasagna sheets
250g frozen spinach (put in boiling water to unfreeze)
1 chopped onion
1 piece of garlic
1 boiled egg
20g of pine nuts
a bit of grated parmesan cheese (or similar hard cheese)
Ingredients for bechamel sauce:
2-3 big tsp of plain flour
25g of butter
nutmeg
salt and pepper
200ml milk
grated parmesan cheese
Process
Boil 1l water in a pan, with salt and a bit of olive oil. Once boiling, put lasagna sheet in 2-3 at each time. They should be ready in a couple of minutes (they should float). Remove and leave it rest.
In a sauce pan, heat some oil, add the onion and garlic. Until soft
Add the unfrozen spinach, keep stirring.
Add the pine nuts and the boiled egg (cut in small pieces). Salt and pepper.
Add a bit of cheese.
Retire from the heat.
In a saucepan, melt the butter, add the flour little by little until forming a paste.
Start adding the milk, again little by little stirring without stopping. This is at low-medium heat. Add nutmet, salt and pepper. Taste from time to time. Add the cheese at the end.
Once you have a sauce that is not very liquid neither thick, we are ready to assemble everything.
Pre-heat oven at 200C
Put some of the bechamel in the spinach mix and stir.
Prepare an oven dish. Put some butter or bechamel sauce in the dish to avoid stickiness.
Take the cold lasagne sheets, cut in two squares. In each square put a spoon of the spinach mix and roll like a canelone. Put in the oven dish in lines.
Once you the oven dish covered with canelones, pour the bechamel soauce on top of them. Add some grated cheese. I had some tomato sauce left over and I add it too.
Put the oven dish in the oven. 30m or until the top is grilled.
I read this book in 2019 about fermentation as I was already doing sourdough and wanted to learn more things. It is a great about anything related to fermentation. From there I started doing sauerkraut (still haven’t achieved the required results though). Another thing I wanted to try was kombucha, a fermented fizzy drink. I thought it was difficult to develop the scoby until I watched this video and learned that I can buy it! So I got my scobby and started the process:
2- Add two bags of black tea for 10 minutes, then remove the bags.
3- Let it cool down to room temperature
4- Add the mixture to a 1 litre jar, add the scoby with its liquid.
5- Cover the jar with a cloth and leave it somewhere warm for 5 days without direct sunlight (I put it under the sink)
6- Remove the scoby and 100ml of the mix into a small jar, keep it in the fridge for the next batch.
7- Put the rest of the mix into a airtight glass 1l bottle at room temperature for 3-7 days until fizzy. I put it under the sink again. You may release a bit of gas after a couple of days if you dont want to see the bottle explode when opening…
8- Put the bottle in the fridge, and afterwards you can enjoy a refreshing fizzy homemade drink!!!
It is a slow process but it is easy. In my first bottle, I was surprised because it was actually quite fizzy!!! The taste was a kind of cider, redbull , etc without the after taste of dead by sugar.
I am doing my second bottle and at some point I would like to add flavours, like ginger… I need to check if this is consider ginger beer. Although no idea if it generates any alcohol… (there is a fermentation process involved and breakdown of sugars….)
Happy with it, and hopefully adding to my routine.
It is never too late. I have never tried “Roscon de Reyes” before. But this year (although over a week later) I wanted to make it as it is the only thing I miss from (my child time) Christmas (Sorry Santa, you dont belong to my culture)
580g Strong white flour (I guess you can use plain too)
180 ml milk (I use semi-skim)
100g sugar
2 egg
7g instant yeast (1 sacket – I can’t get fresh yeast)
80g butter (room temperature)
zest of 1 orange
zest of 1 lemon
pinch of salt
1 tsp of vanilla paste (I dont have “agua de azahar”)
Decoration:
Cherry glacier
Italian mixed peel (orange and lemon glacier peel)
almond flakes
Egg wash
Ingredients for the filling / cream:
500ml of double cream (cold from the fridge)
50g sugar
20ml milk
Process:
In a bowl, put the flour, sugar, yest, zest of lemon, zest of orange, pinch of salt, vanilla paste. Mix everything.
Make a whole in the middle, add the milk, eggs. Mix everything until nearly combine. Finally the butter. Mix again, you will reach a point it is not possible in the bowl.
Put the dough in a work surface. Start knelling a bit. Once your hands are quite sticky with the dough. Stop for a couple of minutes while you scrap the dough from your hands into the main ball. Start knelling again, it should be much easier now and you should get a soft dough after 5-7 minutes.
Put a couple of oil drops in the bowl and spread it so we are going to put the dough in it. Cover with plastic film and let it rest until double in size. It can be over a couple of hours as it is winter.
Once the dough is double in size, remove it from the bowl. Remove the air bubbles knelling a bit, let it rest of a couple of minutes in the bowl.
Take the dough and make a whole in the middle. Spin the dough so you create a “wheel”. Put it in a try with baking paper. Let it rest until double in size again (this time will be quicker)
Now, start preparing the filling. Put in a bowl the double cream, sugar and milk. I used a hand blender and it was perfectly fine. The cream became solid quite quickly to be honest. Give it a taste, you can add more sugar if you want. Let it rest in the fridge.
Once the ring-dough has double up. Pre-heat the oven at 180C. Egg wash the dough very well, this will make it golden. Then add as much Italian mixed peel, glacier cherries and almond flakes as you can. The egg should help to stick it.
Once the oven is hot. Put the “roscon” in until golden. My case was nearly 30 minutes.
Once it is golden, remove from the oven. Let it cool down. With a bread knife, cut it in two slices. Be careful dont break the top, put it aside. Now spread all your cream / “nata” in the base. Put back the top over the cream. And that’s it.
It brought me very good memories (and it is tasty!!!)
“Patatas con ajo” was a typical side dish I had with a beef steak when I was a kid. I remember that acid/strong flavour of the potatoes. I have tried a couple of time lately and I couldn’t find the flavour. So I check a couple of videos, and this one gave me the clue, vinager! And then I realised that very likely in each household, this recipe has a different name like “patatas a la vinagreta”.
In my case, the potatoes are fried with much less olive oil so they dont get that crispy. Once they are cooked, removed from the pan, and put chopped garlic, parsly and vinager (I used white wine one). Cooked for 30 sec and then add again the potatoes. Be sure everything gets mixed. Then remove from the heat.
I found that childhood taste! And the day after, they were even better!
