Bean Salad

As requested, here is the recipe for the bean salad.

Healthy Bean Salad
Ingredients:
One can of garbanzo beans
One can of kidney beans
One can of corn kernels
One small onions, diced
2 cloves of garlic, diced
Juice of one lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
Drain the beans and rinse them and throw them in a big bowl together with the onions, garlic and lemon juice. Mix. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Risotto

Risotto Topped With Chicken And Mushrooms
Ingredients:
2 cups of Arborio rice
6 cups of chicken stock
2 small onions, diced
olive oil
one knob butter

Instructions:
Drizzle some olive oil into a saucepan and add the butter. Saute the diced onions till translucent. Add the rice and saute with the onions for about 5 minutes. Add 1 cup of stock, stirring the rice until it is almost dry. Repeat, one cup at a time.

You can use anything for toppings, here we used some sauted mushrooms and diced chicken.

Fresh Cherry Tomato Relish

I was reading / watching Food Wishes and came across a recipe that I just couldn't get out of my mind. Just like I made mayonnaise and kaya just to see if I could actually make it at home, this was one of those moments that have no actual reason other than simple curiosity. Plus, it felt easy enough to make. All I needed was to find out if it tasted as good as it sounded. And oh it was so yummy. I did tweak it a bit, using lemon juice instead of red wine vinegar, and added onions too. My version below, click on link for original.


Actually I'm not sure how this is different from salsa. Heehee.

Fresh Cherry Tomato Relish
Ingredients:
1 punnet of cherry tomatoes, quartered (about a bowl full)
1 clove of garlic
1 small red onion
Juice of half a lemon
3 tablespoons of olive oil (I think? I just winged it)
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper

Instructions:
Ha, so easy. Mix everything in a bowl. Put in fridge for half an hour to chill.

Cheesecake - It's Not That Hard To Make

Here's the recipe for the cheesecake that I was baking last night. By the time I was done, it was almost 3am! Earlier than I expected, but still very very late.

I've heard people say that once you know how to bake a cheesecake, you've attained a certain level of skill and know-how in the kitchen. I don't think this is true for this cheesecake, as long as you know how to measure and mix, and your oven is the right temperature, you're all set.



Baked Cheesecake
Ingredients:
For the crust:
1 1/2 cups digestive biscuit crumbs
3 tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup melted butter

For the cheese:
4 blocks of cream cheese, softened at room temperature
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 160 degrees celcius.

Mix crumbs, sugar and melted butter together till it looks like wet sand. Place the mixture in a 9 inch springform pan and press down firmly.

Beat the cream cheese, eggs, sugar and vanilla essence together in a large bowl until smooth and creamy. Pour over crust.

Bake in the oven for 55 minutes until the center is set. Let it cool before putting it in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Dulce de Leche!

Woohoo! Success! I made my own dulce de leche this evening! Yes, if you can't already tell by the many exclaimation points that have appeared so far, I'm very excited about it!

Ooh making it yourself is so easy. And it tastes much better than the stuff you get in the supermarket, and probably cheaper as well! Yay!

All you need is to do is place a can of condensed milk in a pot of simmering water, making sure the water covers the cans entirely (or 2 or 3 or however many you can fit in your pot). Let simmer for three hours, topping up water every half an hour, let cans cool when the three hours are up. It's that simple!

There are warnings about exploding cans when you read about making dulche de leche, but so far no one has actually had a can explode on them and you should be safe if the water is gently bubbling and the tops of the cans are covered. It's ok to keep them on the sides, and what I did was roll them around because I figure, the heat was coming from the bottom so you don't want one side to be more cooked than the other, right?

Some sites suggest poking a hole in the can and standing it upright and filling the pot with just enough water to reach just below the top of the can. I didn't do it because I didn't read up about poking holes to release pressure until after my can of condensed milk had been in the water for over half an hour.

Anyway, I'm happy happy happy. :) :) :)