Random things

Blood orange

Technically not something I cooked... Well, I cooked the peel. We had an organic chemistry lab, in which we had to extract limonene from the orange peel. Afterwards, we could either bring the orange home, or leave it in this basket in the lab room. I took mine home, and they were delicious! Very pretty, too, so I wanted to share.

Pita

Again, not something I cooked, but it's delicious. Got it at the Grand Place in Brussels.

Some pasta

Didn't have anything to make for dinner one day, except a bunch of cans.... So I made spaghetti.

Tartiflette~

Actually a tarniflette, since it's vegetarian.

No, the things on top are NOT strips of ham or whatever. It's Reblochon cheese.
And since it's pretty heavy with potatoes and cheese and cream, it's nice with some salad (and my mom's homemade passion fruit juice)~

Orange cheesecake

Same cheesecake as the last one, except for the topping~

Actually, I was out of blueberry jam, which I usually water down to top my cheesecakes. But I had an orange! So I peeled it, took out the quarters, peeled the inner skin, cooked the peel I just removed with a ton of sugar.... into a syrup with candied orange bits, which I cut up really small. I also made some candied orange peels~ They're good~

My most artistic cheesecake so far! Took me a while to make it, since I was going by instinct/impulse the whole time. Dunno how it'll taste, since it's for my brother~

Ok, recipe. I know the link above leads to the other recipes and all, I'll still copy everything in this post for convenience's sake.

CRUST

Ingredients:

- 400 g flour

- 100 g ground almonds or hazelnuts

- 110 g sugar

- 350 g butter

Procedure:

1. Mix the flour, nuts, sugar and butter.

2. Refrigerate for about 30 mins.

3. Spread into a thin layer in pan. Poke generously of holes/put raw beans on top to prevent rising.

4. Cook 15 mins at 180°C in the middle of the oven.

5. Cool before adding cheesecake filling.

CHEESECAKE FILLING

Ingredients:

- 2 Philadelphia cream cheeses (300 g)

- 250 g or one small tub sour cream (fromage frais ou fromage blanc)

- 2 eggs (I use Orgran egg replacer)

- lemon juice

- vanilla extract

- topping (anything you want, really)

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven (71°C)

2. Mix sour cream, cream cheese, lemon juice, vanilla, then add in the eggs

3. Pour into the crust then put into the oven for about 45 minutes or until slightly cracked

4. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours

5. Decorate with topping, and refrigerate until served.

Tip: The longer the cheesecake is refrigerated, the better it will be.

ORANGE TOPPING

Ingredients:

- 1 orange

- Sugar

- Water

Procedure:

1. Peel an orange. Reserve some of the rind aside.

2. Separate the quarters.

3. Delicately remove the thin skin around the orange, leaving the fleshy interior. BE CAREFUL, the rounded part is very easily ripped along with the skin. Keep these skins aside as well.

4. In a small pot, boil the thin orange skins as well as one of the quarters, for fragrance. Add sugar until syrupy.

5. Dip the peeled orange quarters into the syrup and refrigerate.

6. Take the syrup out of the pot and rinse the pot. Remove the white from the orange rind, and cut the remaining orange part into thin strips.

7. Take the now candied skins out of the syrup, and chop them very small.

8. Meanwhile, boil the orange peel pieces. Once thoroughly softened, add sugar until this mixture is syrupy. Taste a peel to make sure it's sweet.

9. Arrange the orange quarters on the cheesecake.

10. Spread the first syrup mix all over, covering the orange pieces, and all around.

11. Take the second syrup mix (with the candied peels) and spread around the edges, near the crust.

12. If you wish to emphasize the "star" shape in the center as I did, take a small spoon and delicately remove the syrup from between the quarters, putting it elsewhere on the cake.

13. Refrigerate before serving.

Enjoy~

Another cheesecake

Same-old, same-old recipe, except for..... THE CRUST! I used an almond cookie recipe to make the crust, and it turned out perfect. Not the typical graham crusts you can find in the USA, and it was a little fragile and cracked a bit in the oven, but it tasted fine. Maybe this will be my ultimate crust?

Incidentally, I found a trick to keep cheesecake from cracking in the oven. It's very simple! Just put a pan full of water under the one that holds your cheesecake when you put it in the oven. It works like magic~

I got the recipe from my cousin. She made Christmas cookies with it, but I tweaked it a tiny bit to adjust to the fact that it would be for a crust~

ALMOND COOKIE RECIPE

Ingredients:

- 400 g flour

- 100 g ground almonds or hazelnuts

- 110 g sugar

- 350 g butter

Procedure:

1. Mix the flour, nuts, sugar and butter.

2. Refrigerate for about 30 mins.

3. Spread into a thin layer in pan. Poke generously of holes/put raw beans on top to prevent rising.

4. Cook 15 mins at 180°C in the middle of the oven.

5. Cool before adding cheesecake filling. Follow up with the Cheesecake recipe.

6. Tip: Put a pan of water under the cheesecake in the oven to prevent cracking~

Pizza breads

I had some leftover spaghetti sauce... So I decided to make "pizzas," basically putting the sauce on top of slices of Moroccan bread drizzled in olive oil, topped with shredded cheese~ It was good.