Spanish Cheesecake--Tarta de Requesón

This cheesecake is simply the BEST, as Tina Turner puts it. It really is. The way a true cheesecake should be, perhaps I should say: the way a true SPANISH cheesecake should be.  

So, I'm just gonna cut straight to the chase, or should I say: to the cheese. I took me a long time to find this recipe but this chef in this elaborate blog, nailed it. Well done Juan Andres. I hope you don't mind that I share your recipe with English readers. 

INGREDIENTS:
-600 grams of requesón. 

-5 eggs.

-30 grams of cornflour.

-150-160 grams of sugar.

-200 ml of heavy cream.

-the zest of a lemon grated (my addition)

-a mold of 22 cm of diameter.

STEPS:

1. Very easy to do. Mix all of the ingredients with a hand mixer. 

2. Set your oven, heat up and heat down to 180 degrees.

3. Now place the cream mix in a mold, you can use oven paper to make it easier, like the pics.

4. Just bake it until it looks golden. You might have to turn off the top part if it starts to brown too much. The original recipe says 50 minutes, but my weak oven required one hour and 20 minutes....just keep checking until the knife comes out clean.

5. Once it is out of the oven you need to let it cool off. Once it is cooled, put it in fridge for some good hours.  THEN and only then, it will be ready.

SO SO good. I just could not believe how awesome this cake is. It is exactly the spongy cakes you can buy in Dia or LIDL. That type! not the flan ones. 

 

Oats and Chocolate Cookies

Oh I had been wanting to make this recipe for a long time. So I found one at the back of an oats package in LIDL and thought: this will do. And guess what, it does, and real well.

Here it is before I lose it or forget it again.

INGREDIENTS:

-200 grams of oats.

-1 egg.

-125 grams of butter.

-125 grams of sugar.

-1 tsp of vanilla essence.

-125 grams of flour.

-1 tablespoon of cocoa powder.

-100 grams of chocolate chips.

-1 tablespoon of baking powder.

-5 tablespoons of milk.

STEPS:

1.Melt butter in bowl and then mix it with sugar and the egg. 

2. Now add the rest of the ingredients except for the chocolate chips, so that would be: the oats, the vanilla, the flour, the cocoa powder, the baking soda, and finally to make it all mix together and glue it, you add the milk.

3. Now add the chocolate chips and mix. 

4. Now in baking paper make little balls on tray and smash them with spoon, if you leave them as balls they won't go flat and won't cook.  

5. Have your oven at 180 degrees, only fire down! and stick cookies. Okay listen to this now: THEY WILL BURN!!!!!!!!!!!!! EASILYYYYYYYYY so watch out for the oven. 14 minutes or so.....keep looking at them because they burn fast.

They are very good. I had been looking for this type of recipe for a while and here it is, in the back of package of oats.

 

Fantastic Meatballs

 This recipe of Deb Perelman is simply great....pretty much like anything she does. 

I have been meaning to post it for 2 or 3 years and never got round to it....so I've had to keep going to it and re-learn it over and over....a waste of time. Plus this summer has been nuts looking for a new place to live, but here I am back in September trying to get in touch with routines a bit and writing down my to-go-to-recipes to feel like a functioning person again.

 So here it goes:

INGREDIENTS:

For the meatballs:
-1/2 kg of mince (pork and beef).

-2/3 cups of breadcrumbs.

-1/3 cup of milk (70 ml).

-2 tbsp. of chopped parsley.

-3-4 tbsps. of parmesan cheese.

-1,5 tsp of salt.

-a pinch of red pepper flakes.

-1 tsp of onion powder. 

-2 eggs.

-1 garlic clove minced.

For the sauce:

-700 grams of tomatoes canned (ideally chopped)

-1 garlic clove minced.

-1 tsp of dried oregano.

-1,5 tsp of salt.

-some olive oil.

STEPS:

1. Add meat, crumbs, milk, parsley, cheese, salt, pepper flakes, onion powder, eggs, and 1 garlic clove minced in bowl. Mix with fork and arrange in balls on a plate.

2. Once you finish that part, have a big pan with strong fire. Add oil and the garlic until it is golden.

3. Now add the tomatoes. A big splash will occur. Add the salt and the dried oregano. And let it all simmer for 10 minutes with a lid on.

4. After 10 minutes, place the meatballs in the sauce and let them cook there for about 15 minutes placing a lid on. After a while turn them around and they just get cooked on their own.

 

 

That's it. So tasty.

 You can serve it with garlic bread. Toast bread and then rub some garlic on it. Who would have thought you can ask milk to raw mince, but it turns out to be great. 

Spanish Mushrooms with Jamón Serrano and Rosemary

 I barely do spanish recipes of tapas and pinchos. Most of them require all these really hard ingredients (That is why they taste so good!). 

But this recipe is pretty simple, and no oven is required!

INGREDIENTS:
-8 big mushrooms.
-100 grams of jamon serrano in bits.
-some fresh rosemary.
-1 tsp of minced garlic.

STEPS:
1. Sautee the garlic and the jamon bits in a frying pan until it is all golden and darker, for 5 minutes in low fire. Now add the rosemary to the mix and stir too. 
2. Reserve this mix and in the same pan, now place the mushrooms (without stem obviously) upside down and cook them for about 3 minutes in medium fire. Place lid over them so that they soften.
3. Now flip the mushrooms and fill the inside with the mix of ham, garlic and ham and now cook for another 10 minutes or 12 until they are done. Cover on and off, so that they soften. This wonderful juice begins to come to the surface, mixing with the ham and garlic and rosemary, and whoah it is so good. Make sure you don't burn them. 

That's it. So good, so spanish and not hard. 

Shrimp & Avocado & Grapefruit Summer Salad

Ah this spanish salad was so refreshing and wonderful given today it has been 38 degrees outside. This is the original recipe, but I added a few twists here and there to make it a whole meal, basically I added noodles, chow mein I already had ready to go. (On that note: don't you think Chow Mein are the best noodles ever?? I do.) 

This proportions are for 2 people only.

INGREDIENTS: 
-15 decent shrimp.
-2 grapefruit (one for juice only)

-1 or 2 avocado.

-some lettuce.

-some green onions or red onions diced up in cubes.

-some pasta or Chow Mein noodles for carbohydrates.

For dressing:

-The juice of half of a grapefruit.

-2 tablespoons of apple vinegar.

-2 tablespoons of olive oil.

-salt and pepper. 

STEPS:

1. The preparation is crazy simple. Peel up the cooked shrimp. 

2. Slice up the avocado.

3. Peel up the grapefruit and get all skin off from each segment.

4. Now prepare the vinagratte in a bowl. Mix: grapefruit juice, olive oil, apple vinegar and salt and pepper and give it a good mix. 

5. Now place the shrimp in the vinagrette and let it soak there for 5 minutes. They have to be well coated.

6. Add the diced red onions to the mix.

7. Now prepare the bed of salad and noodles.

8. Place on top, the avocado, the grapefruit, and now pour all the shrimp with the dressing.

That's it. SOOOOO good and most importantly: so refreshing. 

 

My Salad Dressing

 There is nothing more annoying that to have spent 1 hour cooking a main dish and now, of course, you still need to do the salad...seriously. Who has time or energy to season it decently? sometimes I eat the leaves raw cause I am just fed up of cooking.

And this is why it has taken me 13 years to publish a recipe of salad dressing, cause in all these years, I just could not be bothered to make one!

But our trip to Australia taught me a great trick that I do not want to forget. My mother in-law, the queen of salads, adds always a little bit of syrup to them! it is sheer magic, they taste so good. So I figured I could add this to a salad dressing. 

So here is my invention for you all. My dressing is 150 ml total, by the way.

INGREDIENTS:
-80 ml of olive oil.

-20 ml of balsamic vinegar.

-25 ml of apple vinegar.

-25 ml of maple syrup.

-1 tsp of salt.

-some cracked pepper.

-some rosemary, thyme, oregano, and dukah.

No recipe! 

mix it all together and give it a good stir in your jar. Obviously you can correct the flavour, if it is too salty, or sweet or bitter....just add more of the opposite ingredient, but I think my recipe is a great balance.

I'd say Paul Newman would congratulate me. ;)

Taco Seasoning

 Store-bought taco seasoning has always kinda given me the creeps about all the stuff that seems to have going on. But putting together all the spices required for mexican food is just too much.

I made this recipe today and I am quite happy with it.

INGREDIENTS:
-1 tablespoon of chili powder.
-2 tsp of cumin/spanis comino
-1 tsp smoky/picante paprika

-1 tsp of sweet paprika (my addition here)
-1 tsp salt
-1 tsp ground black pepper. 
-1/2 tsp of garlic powder
-1/2 tsp of onion powder
-1/2 tsp dried oregano
-a pinch of red pepper flakes 

And that's it. Put it all in a jar, give it a good shake and season your Mexican food. Should have made this a long time ago.....and that photo is Chicago, Mexican Waukegan. 

Italian Basil&Tomatoes Salad

 Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand back to the frying pan, aka: summer in Madrid. 38 degrees for the next 2 months. And what to eat in this weather?? Always the question, isn't it? but in this weather cold food is a must.

 A wonderful salad for the summer, inspired by a recipe of Jami Oliver from his book "The ministry of cooking". I only added pasta to make it a full meal.

INGREDIENTS:
-500 grams of many types of tomatoes, big, small, yellow, greenish etc.
-250 grams of tuna.
-1 can of black olives.
-100 grams of white beans.
-a very good bunch of fresh basil leaves.
-400 grams of cooked pasta.
-2 tablespoons of red vinegar or apple vinegar.
-olive oil, salt and pepper.

STEPS: 
1. Cut the tomatoes in small bits, as Americans say: in bite-size.

2.Add the olives, the tuna that you have drained and toss together.
3.Now cook the pasta and cool it off by running cold water and add to the pot.
4. Now add the basil leaves, cut them in half so that they are smaller, and now season with salt and pepper a little, not too much because the tuna and the olives already have salt.
5. Now you can add the red vinegar to season the salad and stir. This step you can also do it in step 1, only to the tomatoes.

 

This salad is great, the star of the show is the fresh basil, it makes it SUPERB. 

If you take it out it will be another boring summer salad but with the basil and the vinegar, it is pretty spectacular....it makes the basil taste sweet even. Kenton loved it.

Morning Glory Cake

Summer is here! and off to the north for some cooler weather.

Just wanted to quickly jot down this variation of this recipe that has turned out really well and we are taking with us to the mountains. So good! 

I like this version of this recipe a lot more than the muffins and the previous one. Basically get rid of the carrots, the wheat flour, the baking soda, the carrots and the honey and do add 1 yoghurt. It was so much more fluffier and awesome and the cake rose! before it hadn't.

This recipe is much much better.

INGREDIENTS:

-1 and 1/2 cups of flour

-1 and 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon.

-1/3 teaspoon of ground ginger.

-1/2 tsp of salt.

-3 eggs.

-1/3 cup of any brown sugar (90 grams)

-1/4 cup of vegetable oil.

-1/4 cup of apple sauce (an apple cut boiled in water)

-1 whole apple (for decoration)

-1 tsp of orange zest. (optional, I didn't add it)

-The juice of 1 orange. (optional, I didn't add it)

-1/3 cup of raisins.

-1/2 cups of walnuts.

-1/2 cup of coconut flakes.

-1 white yoghurt. 

STEPS:

1, The steps are relatively easy to compared to the nightmare of ingredients above. Basically, reunite all dry ingredients in one bowl and all the wet ones in another. Place the raisins in boiling water so that they swell up a bit and are not sadly dry.

2. Mix well all the dry ingredients and the same for the wet ones, then mix them and finally add the nuts.

3. Fill in the cake mold, place the apples in slices on top to decorate, and place in oven to 22o degrees.  Bake for 20 minutes to 220 degrees, so that it rises up, then turn down to 175 and let it bake for at least 30-40 minutes until toothpick comes clean.

That's it. This is a good breakfast to go, hearty and full. Also the amount of sugar is pretty good, not too sweet. My guess is that you can vary a lot in this recipe, and skip some sections, like the coconut the apple sauce, etc. or a banana.