baked lemon cheesecake with an almond and hazelnut base
September 28, 2011 § 7 Comments
I think simple is best when it comes to cheesecake. Therefore, not much of an introduction needed, except to say I adapted it from here, avoided all the electrical equipment that makes me dread washing up, filled it with lemon rind and changed the base.
For the base
80 g plain biscuits (plain wafers and arnotts variations work well)
1 1/4 cups mix almonds and hazelnuts
150 g non salted butter
Toast the nuts and crush in a mortar and pestle along with the biscuits. Melt the butter and mix with the nuts and biscuits. Push into a lined and greased 22 cm base springform cake tin. Allow to chill in the fridge for half an hour and in the meantime…
… the filling
500 g cream cheese
300 g sour cream
3/4 cup castor sugar
4 smallish to medium eggs
3 tsp vanilla essence
Rind from 1 1/2 lemons
Note, pull the cream cheese and sour cream out of the fridge a couple of hours early to help it soften.
Preheat the oven to 160°C/320°F. Cream together the cream cheese, sour cream, and sugar. Add the eggs, vanilla essence and lemon rind and beat with a hand-mixer until smooth and creamy. Pour onto the base and bake for an hour or until set all the way through. Chill in the fridge et voilà.
Parfaite!! Well except for the little crack. But thats a sure way to tell its homemade.
I can’t help imagining what it might taste like with rosemary, or maybe lavender (not so simple after all)… does that make me strange?
edible inflorescence’
September 23, 2011 § 2 Comments
The smell of orange blossoms at our front gate meet me at the end of our street each evening, the fragrance stronger after a whole days sun, an intense and sweet welcome home.
Further down the garden path, these little friends greet me in the vegie patch… a fine way to end the day.
roast vegies and baby beetroots
September 19, 2011 § 4 Comments
I pulled these little beets from the garden today. So sweet!
A friend recently told me about roasting them stalks and all with a dash of vinegar and salt.
Without enough to make a meal of them, here is what I did. Popped them in a tray with pumpkin, sweet potato, carrots, cherry tomatoes, garlic, fresh thyme and rosemary. Sprinkled them with salt, a generous helping of olive oil and a dash of balsamic vinegar. And into the oven at 200°C/390°F they went.
1 hour and 25 minutes later, our old gas oven taking longer than most, out they come.
I stirred together a handful of chopped coriander, some mint, 2 tablespoons yoghurt, a dash of olive oil, salt and pepper to taste and served it with the vegies.
It made for a fine lunch on a warm windy day.
a few little thoughts from an inspiring reading and memories from Varanasi
September 10, 2011 § Leave a comment
Overtime the city has been compared to an artwork, a machine, a sculpture and a poem.
But it is more than these things on their own. A city is composed of memories, feelings, interactions, desires and passions. It is both a natural, built and thought entity shaped by culture and geography. It is a place where lives are told, where natural forces ebb and flow.
It tells a narrative about the people who live there and how they relate to the world. Together these stories make up a place and connect all who dwell in them.
Spirn, AW 1988, ‘The Poetics of City and Nature: Towards a New Aesthetic in Urban Design’, Landscape Journal, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 108-126.
the invisible cookbook 