Mascarpone & Cream Cheese Cheesecake

I love making cheesecakes, especially in the style of Junior's New York cheesecake (my favorite!), but this time I wanted to try something new. I wanted to find a new recipe that took less time and fewer ingredients. The recipe I usually use requires heavy whipping cream, which is quite expensive and makes another trip to the store. I adapted this recipe I found from Food Network: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/mascarpone-cheesecake-with-almond-crust-recipe.html. It's delicious!

Ingredients:

1 packet graham crackers

3 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp butter, melted

8 oz (1 package) cream cheese

8 oz mascarpone cheese (1 package of BelGioioso)

.625 cup sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp vanilla extract or licor

2 eggs, room temperature

How to Make:

1. Blend graham crackers, sugar, and melted butter for the crust. Shape crust into pan. Bake in 325 degree oven for 10 minutes.

2. In a mixer, mix the cream cheese and sugar.

3. Add the lemon juice and vanilla extract.

4. Once mixture is well blended, add the eggs.

5. Pour mixture into prepared crust pan.

6. For mini cheesecakes, bake in 325 degree oven for 25 minutes. Let cool in oven before taking it out and putting it in the refrigerator.

Strawberry Jam (made with local strawberries!)

Strawberry season in my town starts early April, and there are a few strawberry stands that sell daily-picked strawberries. The local strawberries are truly the sweetest strawberries that I've ever tasted. The strawberries you get at grocery stores are not very sweet, and sometimes are super tart, as they are chilled and delivery time takes longer. The best time of day to get the strawberries are in the morning, when the fruit is still moist, and the hot sun is away, and also to beat the crowd-- sometimes the strawberries are all sold out (and you feel like such a lazy person for not waking up at 7 am when the stands open, just for strawberries)! Anyways, my obsession with strawberries and buying $11 worth of six pints of strawberries ended up with I eating too many strawberries and getting the stomach bug (too much acidity in the stomach, maybe?)- at least I made jam during that time of obsession, and here is what I have to rave about these strawberries:

Ingredients: (from the Sure-Jell recipe, makes four 8-oz. jars)

2.5 cups strawberries, pureed
3.5 cups sugar
1.75 tbsp pectin

How to Make:

1. Wash and peel stems off strawberries. Puree the strawberries in a blender.

2. Pour the puree into a nonstick saucepan on medium heat.
3. Add 1.75 tbsp of pectin to the mixture, and bring to a boil.

4. When the mixture is in a rolling boil, add the sugar, stirring constantly.

5. Once mixture returns to a boil for one minute, remove from heat.

 

6. Pour the mixture immediately into sterilized hot canning jars.

7. Seal the jars, and place them in a hot water bath canner. Boil the jars for 10-15 minutes, depending on the altitude at your location. Remove from heat and let cool.

Peach Butter

This year's peach harvest yielded many, many peaches. So many peaches that we were running out of ideas to make use of them. It's difficult to store peaches too, as they get mushy very easily whether stored in the refrigerator or left unpicked on the tree. And those peaches ripe so fast and at the same time! Usually 75% of them are ripe by the beginning of July, and we have to harvest them all during continuous 90+ degree hot days. My sister searched some ideas, and one particularly interesting idea was making peach butter. I've tasted apple butter before, but peach butter! This was sure something interesting to try, as I've gotten so bored of making peach jam. I used up 27 whole ripe peaches for two batches of peach butter. It was sure a fun-filled cooking adventure with my sister (who made peach BBQ sauce) on the Fourth of July.

Ingredients: (makes 4 cups of peach butter)
18 peaches
2 cinnamon sticks (1 tbsp ground cinnamon)
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 cups sugar

How to make:
1. Wash and cut an 'X' (this will make it easier to remove the skin) on the peaches, and soak them in hot water. Place in ice water bath and remove the skin. Dice peaches and place into a blender.

2. Puree the peaches in a blender. For ultra smooth peach butter, you can process the peaches longer.

3. Pour the peach puree into a nonstick pan on medium heat.

4. Add the cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and sugar.

5. Cover pan slightly with the lid so that steam can get out. Boil the mixture on medium heat for 30-40 minutes, until the mixture reduces in volume by one-half.

6. Pour the mixture into sterilized glass jars for canning.
7. Seal the jars and place back into a water bath canner for 5-10 minutes for processing.
8. Remove from heat and let cool.

Veggie Pizza

PIZZA! Making pizza at home sounds like too much work, too many ingredients, and too much thinking that you can just go out and buy a store-bought pizza. However, this mentality is set aside when you find an easy-to-follow recipe. I've been reading a lot of the cooking section of New York Times- it has some really good recipes from reputable restaurants. Doing some more research, I found a recipe from Roberta's pizza in Brooklyn, New York: http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016230-robertas-pizza-dough. The crust came out thin and crispy, just like New York style, and this pizza recipe was sure something to write about. 

 

Ingredients:

306 grams high gluten flour

8 grams fine sea salt

2 grams active dry yeast

4 grams extra-virgin olive oil

Toppings

How to Make:

1. In an electric mixer bowl, combine flour, salt, and yeast. Add 200 grams of lukewarm water. Add the olive oil. Knead until well combined.

2. Let dough rest for 3 hours.

3. Shape dough into a ball and roll out the dough on a floured surface. Stretch out dough and shape it into a circle.

4. Add toppings. (I put thinly sliced soaked potatoes, pizza sauce, mozarella cheese, organic tomatoes, organic basil, and white onions.)

5. Heat up pan (without the pizza first) in a 450 degree temperature oven. 

6. Then, carefully take out the pan and place the pizza in the pan. 

7. Bake for 11 minutes.

8. Take out and enjoy!

Eggy Pancakes

Pancake is my favorite breakfast on the weekends- the time I actually have patience to stand next to the stove and fry a bunch of pancakes and enjoy them with a drenching of Kirkland Signature maple syrup. I have experimented a lot of different pancake recipes, often changing the milk used- soy milk, almond milk, and walnut milk. The recipe I used was from NY Times http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1893-everyday-pancakes and goes back to traditional using whole milk. I made a half batch, and it was plentiful enough for breakfast. I sure am inspired to make this again, as it is simple and easy to follow. 

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1/2 tablespoon sugar

1 egg

1 cup milk

1 tablespoons melted butter

How to Make:

1. Mix flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a bowl until well combined.

2. Add the egg, milk, and melted butter (making sure it's cooled down!)

3. Pour a tablespoon of oil into a pan, and cook the batter, turning the pancake when bubbles form.

Orange Marmalade

This year's orange harvest from the orange tree in my backyard was plentiful- a total of 133 pounds of oranges! Each year the fruit gets sweeter, and this year the taste sure did not disappoint. The sweet, yet tangy orange, paired with my aunt's home-grown lemons, made for a great orange marmalade. I adapted the Sure-Jell recipe to make this orange marmalade.

Ingredients:

4 oranges

2 lemons

3.5 tbsp pectin

2.5 cups water

1/8 tsp baking soda

5.5 cups sugar

How to Make:

1. Slice the oranges and lemons into quarters, then into thin slices. (Some recipes call for peeling off the rinds, then boiling the oranges to remove the white fiber part of the fruit. I went for the faster approach, which is to include all parts of the orange into the marmalade.)

2. Boil the sliced fruit in 2.5 cups water and 1/8 tsp baking soda.

3. Add the pectin into the mixture.

4. When the mixture is in a full rolling boil, add all the sugar.

5. Bring the mixture back to a full rolling boil. Once full rolling boil, keep stirring for 1 minute. 

6. Remove from heat and ladle into hot, sterilized mason jars. Seal tightly.

7. Put the mason jars back into the stock pot and boil for 10 minutes.

8. Remove from heat and let cool.