Lychees and Ice Cream

My friend Simon brought this dip along to a barbecue recently and it was just fantastic. He sent me the recipe and I made it tonight. I'm resisting just eating it with a spoon. I don't have a picture for this. It's white and flecky and dippy. And imagine it say... in a new black ceramic bowl with a green garnish on top.

Ingredients
250g cream cheese (softened)
100g tin of lemon and cracked pepper tuna (or whatever flavour you prefer)
3-4 tablespoons of cream
small handful of chopped spring onions (or dill or chives or parsley, your choice. I had spring onions on hand)
lemon juice
freshly cracked black pepper

Kitchen Needs
Electric beaters or maybe a food processor

Method

No time to cook, however this remarkably simple cup of love was made for me the other day. Lemon tea! I took a sip and boggled; it tasted like pancakes. Clearly just the lemon and sugar I put on pancakes but it was so hot and good. I'm not having tea bag tea any other way, ever again.

Though I believe it is the Russians that often have lemon in their tea, I stole the picture from Asian Tea Exports.

Ingredients

Hot Lemon Tea

1 black tea bag
1 slice of lemon (1cm thick) 
1 heaped teaspoon sugar
boiling water

Method

Don't forget to rinse the lemon before slicing.

Pop lemon slice and sugar in bottom of a tea cup / mug with tea bag. Fill with boiling water stir and let stand a good 3-5 minutes, squishing bag with teaspoon.

Weak tea is for sissies. Seriously. Don't even bother if you're not going to have the tea as black as it can get, or if you're going to leave out the sugar. Sugarlessness is for fine tea, not tea bag tea. And refrain from the milk. Though I have to admit I haven't tried this with milk yet, so it could be okay.

Enjoy the pancakey goodness.

If you're lemon sucking inclined, eat the lemon slice when the tea's gone.

P.S. A green tea tip. (This includes jasmine tea.) Green tea is bitter if you use 100C boiling water. The leaves cook and make it just horrible. The water should be 60C-70C. If you fill your cup from the urn in the staffroom that's always 100C+, fill the cup and wait a bit before putting the tea in.

This is quite probably the easiest recipe in the world and such a delight at the end. In short, dump all the ingredients together, slosh them into a pie plate and bake until three layers magically appear: a crust, a custard layer and a coconut top.

Pictures from an article in the Detroit News and LolaMC's xanga site. I definitely wouldn't bake it as brown as the one in the Detroit News; looks a bit burnt to me.

Impossible Pie (Cut)

Kitchen Needs
24cm pie dish

Method
Grease a 24cm pie dish.

Sift flour, stir in sugar, coconut, eggs, vanilla, butter and milk until well combined.

Bake about 45mins at 180C until a rich golden brown.

Impossible Pie - Just Right

This is originally a Maltese recipe. Some versions add walnuts and sultanas, up to you. I think the sultanas would be interesting. The more octopus you can put in, the better. You want to cook it for long enough as to have the suction pads melt off the oh so tender octopus pieces in your mouth. The picture is actually from a Mauritian site, but looks exactly like the stew I produce.

Octopus Stew

Kitchen Needs
Large stockpot
Meat mallet / hammer

Method
Clean the octopus by turning head inside out and removing the insides, i.e. the guts and inkbag. Remove the beak and two eyes. Place the octopus in a plastic bag and beat it with a meat mallet to tenderise the flesh. Cut into 5cm pieces.

Heat oil in a large pot and fry onion til golden. Add octopus and cook for 5-10 minutes. Add all ingredients except for peas. Mix well and cover. Cook for about 1.5 to 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Keep chekcing on it. 10 mins before removing from heat, add the peas. If desired, reduce the liquid by leaving it uncovered. If too dry, add wine or hot water. Salt and pepper to taste while cooking. Serve with fresh crusty bread or over spaghetti.

I was so disappointed when these came out of the oven. There were so average, and, well, seeing as I don't have a strong sweet tooth (yet all the recipes I've posted so far are sweets) I looked at them with distaste. Had these brownies been on some sort of party platter, I would have avoided them.

And then they cooled.

So. Unbelieveably. Yum. They were terribly burnt, but the sugar hid it well and they were still divine. My only note is to make sure you pull them out of the oven when you get moist crumbs on your testing skewer.

The wealth of pictures online make it terribly unlikely for me to take and post my own pictures. The brownies look exactly like the pictures I've found from this danish site and Rosie Reisman.

Ingredients

Choc cream cheese brownie

Kitchen Needs
16cm x 26cm (base) x 4cm (deep) slabslice tin
Double boiler or heatproof bowl over saucepan of simmering water
Electric beaters

Method
Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line a 16cm x 26cm (base) slab/slice tin with baking paper leaving overhang on long sides.

Melt chocolate in a double boiler and stir until smooth. (Who actually owns a double boiler when simmering hot water on the stove with a bowl on top works just as well?)

Meanwhile use electric beaters to cream butter and brown sugar until pale. Add 3 eggs, one at a time, mixing well in between. (Mixture may curdle slightly.)

Sift flour, cocoa and baking powder over butter mixture and fold until almost combined. Add melted chocolate and mix well.

In another bowl, using cleaned electric beater, beat cream cheese, caster sugar and vanilla until soft and creamy. Add the last egg and beat for a further 2 minutes.

Spread half the chocolate mix into the lined pan then drop half of the cream cheese mixture in heaped teaspoon dollops on top. Cover with the remaining chocolate mixture then dollop on the rest of the cream cheese. Use a flat bladed knife and swirl the mixture in the pan to create a rippled effect.

Bake for 40 mins, (probably less) or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out with moist crumbs clinging to it.

Allow to cool in pan. Use the paper to lift out and slice and serve. Undeniably best when cooled.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Brownies

This cheesecake is baseless and oh so yum. Not too sweet, though if you prefer sweeter, add ad another quarter cup of sugar. (I've already added an extra quarter cup in this recipe.) The original recipe had something like 1 cup of poppyseeds in the cake mix; I found this to be far too much and made the cake unpleasantly grainy. 1/3 of a cup is perfect.

When first making the lemon curd, my cooking partner and I kept on dipping a spoon in, asking each other "Does the back look coated to you? Does it?" "Hmmm... maybe?" When the curd fially reached the proper consistency, we laughed at how we could have possibly imagined that it could have been ready earlier.

When the curd coats the back of a spoon, it should be about half a centimetre thick, and to test, coat the back of the spoon, run your finger through it and the mixture should not recover the path your finger's just made.

Google tells me that the image I've stolen this time is from Kraft Canada. The cake looks much like the picture, only with yummy, bright yellow lemon curd on top. It's amazing how yellow lemon rind makes curd.

Ingredients

Poppy Seed Cheesecake

Cake
1/3 cup poppy seeds
500g cream cheese, softened
500g (fresh) ricotta, broken up with a fork
3/4 cup sugar
6 eggs
1tbs vanilla essence
400g condensed milk
1 cup lemon curd (recipe to follow)

Lemon Curd
Rind and juice of 3 medium sized lemons, rind finely grated (preferably zested) and juice strained.
75g butter
250g sugar
3 large eggs

Kitchen Needs
24cm springform tin
Electric beaters or an electric mixer
Spatula
Double Boiler or heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water
Whisk

Method -- Base
Crush biscuits in food processor or in bag with mallet until medium-fine crumbs. Mix with brown sugar, then with 125g melted butter. Press into cake tin base and drizzle on remaining 50g butter to make the base of a consistency that will stay put in tin.

Grease the sides of tin and cover with poppy seeds, shaking and rotating the tin on its side. Tip out excess seeds.

Method -- Cake
Leave cream cheese out on the bench to soften and preheat oven 200C

Beat cream cheese and ricotta with electric beaters until very smooth. Add the sugar and mix for 2 minutes.

Beat in eggs one at a time, mixing well in between. Then add condensed milk and vanilla essence and beat for one more minute. Using a spatula, stir around the sides of bowl if necessary. Add the 1/3 cup poppy seeds and mix well.

Pour mix into tin and smooth the top by gently tapping tin on counter. Bake at 200C for 10 mins, then reduce to 160C and cook for 40mins or until the mix is set. The cake should still be slightly wobbly with the top beginning to become golden. Allow the cake to cool undisturbed in the tin until cold. Top with lemon curd and allow to set. To serve, run a warm metal knife / spatula around edge of cake and release from springform tin.

Method -- Lemon Curd
Place lemon rind, juice, butter and sugar in top of a double boiler (or heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Heat, stirring until sugar dissolves and the mixture is quite warm.

Add eggs and whisk well to distribute eggs thoroughly. Continue stirring while mixture heats. Keep stirring until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. This make take a while. This indicates that the eggs have thickened and set. Do not allow the mixture to boil as the eggs will curdle.

Allow the curd to cool a little and spread over the cake, then sprinkle lightly with poppyseeds.

Cake can be made three days in advance.

This wonderful muffin recipe is pretty much exactly as Nic posted on bakingsheet.blogspot.com only I add a chopped apple into the mix to make twelve muffins. One thing I love is the use of vegetable oil. There's always oil in my place, and almost never is there butter.

I've stolen the picture from montanamuffins.com because I haven't managed to take my own pictures of these muffins, but they look pretty much exactly as in this picture, save perhaps the brown sugar I use isn't as lumpy as the one on top these muffins.

Ingredients

AppleCinnamon

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

In a large bowl, whisk together sugars and the egg until smooth. Beat in vegetable oil and vanilla. Working in 2 or 3 additions, alternate adding the flour and the buttermilk to the sugar mixture, stiring until just combined. Fold in chopped apple.

In a small bowl, stir together remaining brown sugar and cinnamon.

Fill each muffin cup about 1/2 full. Sprinkle about 1/2 - 1 tsp of the brown sugar mixture into each cup. Evenly divide remaining batter on top and sprinkle with remaining sugar mixture.

Bake at 200C for 15-18 minutes, until a tester comes out clean.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before eating.

I suppose it's about time I started one of these, a recipe blog, seeing as I love food so much. I'd like to hope that I'll post pictures too, but let's face it. Probably too much effort. I can't wait to put in some of my favourite recipes though.