shadowspar

Ok, so, I made this tonight: an interesting crustless cheesecake that doesn't taste anywhere near as much like white chocolate as one might think.

Cheesecake:

• 2 ea 250g pkg cream cheese, softened
• ⅓ cup sugar
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 6 sq Baker's white chocolate (total 170g), melted
• ¾ cup sour cream
• 2 ea eggs (we used powdered egg replacer; it worked well)
• 1 tsp vanilla

Topping:

• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 tbsp sugar

Beat cream cheese, sugar and lemon juice together until smooth. Add melted white chocolate, sour cream, eggs and vanilla. Beat until well combined.

Pour batter into a lightly greased 8½" springform pan. Bake at 450℉ for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 250℉ and bake 30-35min more. Beat together topping ingredients, spread over cheesecake, and return to oven for 5 more minutes.

After removing, run a knife around the sides of the cheesecake; let cool completely before removing sides of springform pan.

Refrigerate at least 5 hours and preferably overnight. Optional garnishes: white/chocolate curls, fruit, fruit coulis.

That being said, it was good, but nowhere near as fantabulous as this relatively-easy no-bake chocolate cheesecake we made earlier in the week. I used some leftover oreo crumbs we had on hand in place of the crushed-up digestives, and the result was highly awesome. That's going to be my go-to cheesecake recipe from this point forward.

• Dressing
• 2 tablespoons white or red balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ⅛ teaspoon pepper
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• Salad
• 1 cup dried lentils, sorted, rinsed
• 2 bell peppers, quartered lengthwise
• ¼ cup sliced green onions
• 2 tablespoons thinly sliced fresh basil
• 4 leaves of leaf lettuce (optional garnish)
• 2 oz. (1/2 cup) crumbled feta cheese

Procedure:

1. In small nonmetal bowl, combine all dressing ingredients; blend well. Refrigerate.
2. Heat grill. In medium saucepan, combine lentils and 3 cups of water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer 15 to 20 minutes or until lentils are tender but not mushy. Drain; rinse with cold water to cool. Drain well.
3. Place peppers on gas grill over medium heat or on charcoal grill 4 to 6 inches from medium coals. Cook 4 to 6 minutes or until crisp-tender and grill-marked, turning occasionally. Alternatively, roast peppers in a 400℉ oven. Remove peppers from grill; let stand until cool enough to handle.
4. Optional: peel skins off of the peppers. This will go more easily if you put them into a sealed container after removing them from the grill or oven; the residual heat & moisture helps "sweat" the skins off.
5. Cut peppers into 1/2 inch pieces.
6. In large bowl, combine cooked lentils, bell peppers, onions and basil. Pour dressing over salad; toss gently to coat.
7. To serve, line individual plates with lettuce. Spoon salad onto lettuce. Top with cheese.

Makes 4 (1 cup) servings.

This is a hand-me-down recipe from my Papa (grandfather). Not only it is one of the best damn desserts going, it's hands-down the easiest, too; even easier than boxed pudding mix from the grocery store. Best of all, it lets you make something awesome out of the godawful strawberries we get during winter in the Great White North, bereft as they are of any hint of sweetness after their multi-thousand kilometer journey here.

So easy, it's hardly even a recipe:

• Wash, clean, and dry strawberries; slice them into a bowl.
• Dredge them in sugar: generously dust with granulated sugar, toss to mix, and dust again.
• Set them aside for a half hour or longer. The sugar makes the juices leach out of the strawberries, yielding a sort of strawberry syrup.
• Throw in a few dollops of sour cream (14% preferably) and stir the whole mess together.
• Divvy up into bowls & serve.

The timing on this often works well at dinnertime: slice & sugar the strawberries while the main course finishes cooking, and by the time the end of the meal rolls around, you're ready to lob in the sour cream and dish it up. If you want to turn down the fat numbers, better to go with a mild yogurt than some of the nasty reduced-fat "sour cream product" that lurks on supermarket shelves. Here, we just recently got a wonderful 2% yogurt that's almost as good in this recipe as full-fat sour cream, at least in my estimation.

Iridōfu is a homestyle Japanese dish of crumbled tōfu stir-fried with various additions. Maki's recipe has quickly become one of my favourites, but I like to make it quite a bit stronger since I'm generally eating it with a fair deal of rice. Essentially, I double the seasoning components and substitute out the ingredients that I don't often have on hand or can't get easily here in the Sault. This winds up giving a recipe something like this...

This one's become so much of a ritual that I can pretty much recite it by now.

• ½ cup unbleached AP flour
• ¼ cup whole wheat flour
• ½ cup buckwheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt (omittable)
• 2 eggs (we use Kingsmill powdered egg replacer in lieu)
• 1½ cups buttermilk (or, using the standard "mock buttermilk" formula, 1½cups milk + 1½tbsp vinegar or lemon juice. soymilk works in this formulation too)
• 2 tbsp fancy molasses (or, if you never have it either, 2 tbsp of dark brown sugar makes a nice sub)

Standard pastry drill: mix dry, mix wet, wet into dry. These turn out a bit denser than garden variety pancakes, so I like to cook them a bit longer at a bit lower temp. They're a great platform for funky stuff like cranberry butter as well as the more traditional maple syrup.