Baileys Chocolate cheesecake..

I'm torn with this one whether its a success or not. Yes it does fill the title description but at the same time it had me slightly hungover, repeatedly bending down to the oven, to check if it was cooked yet (not good for a sore head, too many cocktails the night before!), it took a total of 1hr 40 minutes to bake in my oven, which is fan assisted...and is usually quicker than a normal oven, the recipe states about 1 hour.

The cheesecake itself is relatively straight forward to make, so am tempted to try again...I don't have a hand mixer as stated, just used my electric whisk as was nearest thing to it, I wonder if that made much of a difference as my mixture was very runny going into the tin..

The recipe was adapted from a BBC Good food recipe for Kahlúa Chocolate Cheesecake, the adaption being that I used Baileys as they had sold out of Kahlúa, I think it was a little over done in the end as the outer side was more cake like in texture but end result was a very dense, chocolate, calorie laden treat. The topping with creme fraiche and Baileys* in was a nice finish and helped to moisten the cake.

An evening with Tilda..

Last Wednesday, I spent a gorgeously hot summers evening with a lovely bunch of food bloggers at the gorgeous, quirky location that is Food at 52 in London, I believe most of us had serious house envy during our visit! It had a real homely feel, with lots of random jars lining the shelves (reminded me of my windowsill!) and big deep sofas to get lost in!

The evening was hosted by Camilla from ‘Tilda’, the ‘rice people’ who have just launched a new range of stir-fry rice’s that are already cooked and flavoured, all you need to add is your meat or vegetables and cook through, great for when time is short! All the packets serve two which is ideal for us. The range currently has Kung-po, Peking, Thai green and Thai red rice.

Whilst you can use the packets just as they are, we were very lucky to have Jo Pratt demonstrating other uses, including a delicious prawn and rice broth, gorgeous Thai chicken toasts with a nutty cucumber relish, which were a real crowd pleaser, tasty duck & rice pancakes and last but not least, a tasty and fragrant lamb rice dish.

After Jo’s demonstration, I teemed up with Kavey and Gary, and whilst Gary expertly stirred everything me and Kavey rounded up goodies to add into the wok, this was our final dish using Tilda’s Peking rice:

Tilda select only the best grains of pure basmati rice, and following a little talk, I have strange visions now of a big red laser zapping all the baddies out, but no wastage is involved as this goes into animal feed. Tilda also works closely with over 10,000 farmers, providing them with the seed to ensure they receive the best market prices and ensuring a better future for them so you can buy with confidence.

All of the rices are gluten free, suitable for veggies and with no nasties in. They will be available via Waitrose or Ocado imminently.

Big thanks to the ladies at Wildcard for arranging the evening, the great hosts at Food at 52, Tilda and the lovely Jo Pratt for taking the time to discuss her chilli con carne recipe with me (one of my favourites !) and her really fab book In the Mood for Entertaining, which I plan on cooking the entire book through! Oh and most definitely a big thanks for my lovely new wok, I will try really hard not to kill this one - have gone through 5 so far on our ceramic hob, I must get one of these portable gas cookers:

P.s. don’t stand near MiMi when she is armed with a wok and hot oil! ;-)

Chorizo side dishes (aka fridge surprise!)

Last week meals were mainly fridge surprise, overspent the previous week so was determined to use up what was in the cupboards, along with a *lot* of food leftover from our Fathers Day meal. I had some chorizo, plus some beautiful long red peppers to use and made the following two simple dishes:

Grilled Red peppers with Chorizo and Smoked Cheddar (from Aldi reduced to clear 50p!):

In a pan I fried off about 2 inches thinly sliced chorizo salami, with a small diced onion, piled into halved and deseeded peppers, grated over a good layer of smoked cheddar, seasoned then grilled for about 12 minutes, until the cheese had melted nicely and browned, was delicious and most surprisingly was even loved by the mr anneskitchen! Apparently reminded him of old fashioned pepperoni pizzas..!

Next up was stir fried Broccoli, with chorizo and new potatoes:

With the remaining chorizo and odd ends, I quickly blanched a few broccoli florets, then fried the remaining sliced chorizo, a small diced onion and 2 sliced cooked new potatoes, until golden, added the broccoli and heated through, made a delicious and colourful side dish!

Recent cooking

I'm back at last! Whilst there hasn't been a huge amount of cooking going on, I have made a couple of nice things lately - most recently was cappuchino bars, from BBC Good Food 'The Collection' book, which I received for my birthday. Picture came out a little fuzzy but will make again:

Next up is a new breakfast favourite of mine - Egg and Mushroom wraps. A little different but delicious, I work shifts and this tends to be my breakfast when I am on the 'late shift', keeps me going until my late lunch break! Basically fry 2-3 thinly sliced chestnut mushrooms in a small amount of butter in a hot pan, add 3 chopped cherry tomatoes, whisk in a bowl 2 eggs, a splash of milk and some of your favourite chilli sauce, stir into the browned mushroom mixture and scramble together until cooked through, tip into a tortilla wrap and fold as desired, enjoy!

Next up, I bought on special a couple of weeks ago some new 'Jamie Oliver' Lasagne sheets, I must admit I normally just pick up the value lasagne sheets but I am switching to these in future as we both noticed a big difference in the finished lasagne, silky, tasty pasta without any pre-soaking required. Delicious!

(I finally found a use for my silicon 'tin' - the sheets fit perfectly!!)

More pasta - this time some pretty 'Trecce dell' Orto' which my dad picked up for me recently, which had different flavoured twirls; beetroot, spinach, curcuma and sepia (cuttlefish ink - sounds vile but actually was very tasty!) I made up a simple carbonara sauce with some very tasty bacon bits from Aldi's and it coated the pasta beautifully:

Back in the kitchen soon!

Big apologies - I did one big blog post and then abandoned you all - but I have a good reason, as shared on my twitter recently...A very good reason too for once - my darling boyfriend and love of my life proposed just before my birthday and of course I accepted!!

Now my head is filled with wedding plans and I am mainly living on a mixture of milka daim chocolate and crunchie rocks! Will be back soon!!

xx

Previously on the menu..

No real recipes here just the best of what I've been making lately from the cupboards etc, its my birthday later this week so not much cooking going on here!

First up are these delicious Gluten and Wheat free onion bhajis, same batter as my recipe for the scrummy aubergine ones I recently made, thinly slice an onion, soak in a little soured milk, coat in the batter and fry for 5-6 minutes or until cooked through:

Next up, we recently had some leftover cooked roast chicken, which I mixed with a little cooked red onion, wilted spinach and red pesto, stuffed into puff pastry squares and glazed with beaten egg, unusual main course and delicious use of leftovers!:

This is one of my new favourite things to eat - Chorizo & little gem risotto, using raw chorizo sausage, gently baked, sliced up then added to a risotto base when halfway cooked, plus half a tin of leftover sweetcorn! (I got into the habit of adding crunchy lettuce to my risottos a while back, gives a nice crunch, romaine works well too!)

This is an awful picture so will just have to make again! It is the last piece of Chocolate fudge pudding from one of my many baking books, rice, moist and more coffee than fudgy sauce but still good!

On a healthier note, my fridge salad surprise lunch- ripe avocado, chopped tomatoes, mixed salad leaves, fresh coriander and basil shredded up, chestnut mushrooms, a few drops hot sauce and good balsamic vinegar, eaten alongside reading the latest Olive magazine:

Tomato, smoked bacon, red onion and cheese tart, a nice light supper with a salad:

Tuna, red onion and cheese flan (super puffed up when fresh out of the oven but sadly sinks after, still tasty though!):

Tomato, herb, spring onion and sausage omelette:

Last but not least, jaffa fairy marble cakes topped with orange syrup and a little dusting of icing sugar: