Frozen Strawberry Cheese Cake

It's been a productive week at work, so many deadlines and it's horrible! Beside making the Strawberry crumble before, I need another dessert that could indulge me (and my family) for this long weekend. Something sweet and sour and also fresh. So I decided to make a Frozen Strawberry Cheese Cake.



Been a long time since my first trial making  frozen strawberry & blueberry cheese cake couple years ago, it's basically same ingredients. I'm using this recipe from Nigela website with a bit of adjustment.

Strawberry Cream Cheese - Ingredients

• 125 grams digestive biscuits- I'm using Ritz Cheese Crackers
• 75 grams butter (soft)
• 300 grams cream cheese- I use 250 gr Cream cheese & 50 gr Sour cream
• 60 grams sugar- I use only 50 grams
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract- I omit this one because I don't have this at the moment
• 250 ml double cream
• strawberry jam (2 pots)
• strawberries (fresh, a few to decorate or strawberry sauce to drizzle - optional) - I made a raspberry coulis instead.
• Grated Lemon Zest

Method

1. Crush the digestive biscuits in a bowl (just use your fingers).
2. Melt the butter and then pour into the bowl of crushed biscuits and stir well. Find a container or flat bowl and press the biscuit mixture on the bottom evenly. Use a metal tablespoon/ teaspoon to spoon out jam and spread it evenly over the layer of biscuit, (make sure the spoon is wet to stop the jam from sticking)
3. In a separate large bowl beat together the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla extract until smooth. In another bowl or a processor, whip the double cream, and then pour and fold it into the cream cheese mixture. 
4. I divided the cheese mixture into half. First half mixed it with 2 Tbs of strawberry jam with a mixer combine them together.
5. Carefully spoon the strawberry cheesecake mixture first onto the biscuit and strawberry base then continue with the other mixture on top of it. Using another wet metal tablespoon/teaspoon smooth the surface.
6. Decorate with strawberries.
7. Leave in the fridge overnight or for 3-5 hours.

 

Raspberry Coulis (optional)

• 1 Cup of frozen Raspberry
• 2 Tbsp Sugar to taste

Method

1. Tip all of the coulis ingredients into a frying pan and heat until the raspberries start to break down. Using a mesh strainer, strain mixture into a bowl then continue pushing residue of mixture through. Discard seeds. Set aside until ready to serve.

To Serve: Cut a slice with a wet hot knife, add strawberry on top.

 

 

 

Pour some Raspberry Coulis to add some sweet and sour taste.

 

 

Then, Enjoy!

 

 

This is one of heavenly dessert that I love. It's creamy, cheesy but yet it's fresh because of the strawberries. My son had his first cheese cake because he's curious when I made this and he said it tasted just like strawberry ice cream :D

 

 

 

Strawberry Crumble

Another easy and simple dessert to make. After couple times made an Apple crumble, this time I wanna try using different fruits: Strawberry!

Ingredients

for the filling:

• 500 grams strawberries (hulled)
• 50 grams caster sugar + brown sugar

 for the topping:

• 100 grams plain flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 75 grams cold butter (diced)
• 100 grams muesli
• 75 grams sugar+ brow sugar
• double cream/ice cream (to serve)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6/400ºF. Put the hulled strawberries into your pie dish, I'm using a small soup bowl or you can use ramkin and sprinkle over them the sugar. Give the dish a good shake or two to mix the ingredients.
2. Now for the crumble topping: put the flour, muesli, sugar and rub in the cold, diced butter between thumb and fingers. When you’ve finished, it should resemble rough, pale oatmeal.
3. Tip this over the strawberry mixture, covering the strawberries in an even layer and giving a bit of a press in at the edges of the dish. Set the dish on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 30 minutes, by which time the crumble topping will have darkened to a pale gold and some pink-red juices will be seeping and bubbling out at the edges.
4. Leave to stand for 10 minutes before serving with double cream or ice cream.

I didn't have exactly 500 grams of strawberries so it's a bit less taste of strawberry, but still yummy.
Will do it again with more strawberries next time.

 

#SundayCooking: Burgers

One of our favorite menu for Lunch/Dinner is Burger!. A homemade patty is really simple to make and it tastes even more delicious than the one that ready to buy.
You could also decide how thick the beef patty is, depends on how you like it.

There are lots of recipe from books/internet to make beef patty, I usually use this recipe:

3 small Red Onion
2 small Garlic
1/2 of small Onion
All slices and cook them with Olive Oil until half cooked

300 gr Minced Beef - less fat is more juicy
Herbs and spices (Rosemary/Italian Herbs Mix, Black Pepper, Garlic Powder)
Worchestersheir Sauce & BBQ Sauce
Breadcrumbs (instead of using breadcrumbs, I use a Wholegrain bread, toast and then crush them into pieces) 
Salt
Olive Oil
4 Burger Buns

How to:
Combine half cooked union/garlic to the beef, add herbs, add 1 Tbs Sauce Worchestersheir & BBQ Sauce, crushed wholegrain bread to the beef and then mixed them all with your hand.
Divide the mixture into 4 equal portions shape each portion with your hands into a patty.

Place the patties onto a tray lined with- greaseproof paper. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to rest. Chilling the patties will help them hold together when cooked. This also allows the flavours in the patties to blend and develop. If you chill the patties for any longer, increase the cooking time slightly.

Heat half the olive oil in a large, non-stick frying pan over medium-low heat and cook half the patties for about 4 minutes on each side or until browned and cooked through. It is important to cook mince right through because it has a larger ratio of surface area to volume than whole pieces of meat, and is therefore at greater risk of contamination by bacteria in the air. Transfer the patties to a plate, set aside and keep warm. Repeat with the remaining oil and patties.

For the buns, preheat grill on high. Place the hamburger buns, cut-side up, under the preheated grill and toast for 1 minute or until golden. 

To Serve, Spread mayonnaise on the buns add beef patty and sauted garlic & mushroom on top of it. You could also add shredded lettuce and tomato first or Cheese before.

Served with side dish, mixed veggies and french fries.

Enjoy your Burger with a homemade beef patty!

NYE Family Dinner - Steak Party

It's time to be Thankful for what we had in 2013 and to cherish the a new excitement on 2014.

We didn't go anywhere to Celebrate New Year's Eve, so I made a Family Dinner for 4 of us. Oh yes, we're expecting another baby this 2014 that's why we're very blessed and so excited.

We planned to have Steaks night complete with salad (minus dessert).

Start with Fruit Salad: Mixed of Grapes, Apples, Pineapples and Strawberries. Mixed with dressing: mayonnaise, lemon zest, a bit of milk (sweetened) and grated cheese.









Mixed Veggies from Asparagus, Baby Carrots, Baby Potatoes. Baked them with drizzled of Olive oil, rosemary, black pepper and sea salts.

Main Course: Rib Eye Steak and Sirloin Steak. Somehow I pan fried them a bit too long so it's too well done. Oh well, since I only cannot eat rare/medium steak so it's fine. I only marinated them with garlic powder, black pepper, italian herbs, sea salts and butter for only half an hour. And then cook in a pan with a bit of Olive oil.

Also made French Fries for the big boy.

I made a wasabi mashed potato. It's just a usual mashed potato with added wasabi on it. Not too much though.. only to get the taste of it. Surprisingly Wasabi goes really well with mashed potato.

Since I didn't make a dessert, so I made a refreshing drink to complete the after taste, a fresh Lemonade with Soda.

Totally full and happy tummy! And now we're waiting for the count down.

3..2..1.. Happy New Year!

Goodbye 2013, You've been awesome to us and Hello 2014
We're excited to see you :D

Easy Breakfast: Bread, Eggs and Asparagus

I love making an easy breakfast for me (and my family) and I try to do different menus everyday. Somehow it challenged me to be more creative each day.

No need a fancy ingredients.. sometimes you only need a bread or eggs that's already enough. I will try to post many variations of what breakfast that I usually make.

Let's have breakfast!