Nutella Speckulas Cheesecake

Bf and I were supposed to go to a friend's place for dinner this week, so I made a cheesecake. Then it was cancelled, so oh well, we'll just eat the whole thing!

A few years back I was experimenting with nutella cookies, this time I wanted to make a nutella cheesecake. One of the really great things about cheesecake is you can add about a cup of anything and give it a different flavor without messing up the baking science too much. Experiment!

When I went to the grocery store, I was excited to see Speckulas cookies! If your not familiar with speckulas, they're a spiced German/Dutch cookie commonly eaten in the fall and around Christmas time. They are very thin and normally shaped like windmills.  My boyfriend has been steadily working his way through the leftover cookies for the last few days.

If you're trying to find speckulas, I found mine at Aldi but you can also try World Market or Trader Joe's, I have seen them at both. If it's not fall you might have a hard time, in which case you can use a graham cracker crust or try shortbread!

If you have a basic cheesecake recipe you like, you can use it and just mix in 1 cup of nutella. If you cannot find speckulas Or if you need a little more direction you can follow my recipe here:

Crust:
25 speckulas cookies (about 1 cup crumbs)
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
1 tablespoon sugar (optional - I think the cookies already have enough, you might taste one first)

Filling:
2 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3   eggs
1 heaping cup nutella
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. Place speckulas cookies in a zip bag. Crush into fine crumbs using rolling pin. Combine crumbs, butter and sugar (optional); mix well. Press crumb mixture onto bottom of springform pan . Bake 10 minutes. Remove from oven to cool.

Meanwhile, place cream cheese in large mixing bowl with sugar, flour, eggs, and vanilla or almond; beat until smooth. Pour batter over slightly cooled crust. Return to oven. Bake 50-55 minutes until center is just set.

Remove from oven. Cool 20 minutes and carefully run sharp knife around edges of cheesecake. Allow to cool and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.

Enjoy!

Late photo - Thanksgiving feast

I have been a supreme slacker on blogging. To be honest, I haven't been cooking very much either! However, my friend Kim (who just moved to DC!) and I did prepare a feast on Thanksgiving! See below two (very tardy) photos.

The ham was made by slicing a smoked ham partially apart and putting brown sugar in each slot. The toothpicks are holding small bits of apple and pineapple each. My grandma advised that using apple and pineapple adds a slightly different flavor. It was a tasty ham (made in the crock pot) but I'm not sure it's the best it could be. If anyone makes this for Christmas, be sure to let me know how you like the addition of apple!

The other photos shows part of the feast - green beans with blanched almonds, mashed potatoes, gravy (instant, sadly) and stuffing. We also had apple and pumpkin pie (both made from scratch by Kim!), turkey breast (small group), garlic biscuits, cheeses and any number of other yummy things.

Ham in the crock pot!

Just some of the Thanksgiving feast!

Pizza week continues - Sweet potato arugula

This recipe was actually the inspiration of pizza week. I saw a recipe on thekitchn for sweet potato arugula pizza (this is their photo, I did not get a shot of mine), which just sounded SO tasty. Normally, I don't break out new recipes when I'm cooking for other people, but I decided to make this when some friends came over, not for dinner exactly but weighty nibbles.

First, let me say that the flavor combination was excellent. The sweet potato and arugula are a perfect match. Next, let me say, this recipe did not work at all. The sweet potato do not cook nearly fast enough for them to be ready before the crust is anything other than burnt and I sliced them wafer thin. I highly recommend you make this but when you do, make sure to pre-cook the sweet potato until they are at least half-way cooked either by microwaving your slices or cooking them on the stove in a little bit of water. Seriously, I had to take all of the slices off the pizza, cook them more and put them back on. A royal pain in the bum.

When the munchies were finally ready, I had some very hungry guests (including me) but we all loved this. I would definitely make it again but with pre-cooking my sweet potatoes.

Homemade mac & cheese

Cheese. Pasta. Yum.

My friend Abby was having a dinner party for her birthday, she is a serious gourmet. She has made her own ricotta cheese and despite my reservations about eating a homemade dairy product, it was pretty good (I'm told it's actually pretty easy to make ricotta). So what do I take to the party of a fellow experimental chef? For some reason, in the middle of DC summer heat, mac and cheese was the first idea I had. I had never made mac and cheese from scratch, it was a 97 degrees outside with 90% humidity but for whatever reason a casserole dish full of comfort food seemed entirely logical. As I write this, it's starting to sound delicious all over again.

So, how does one make mac and cheese with out a box from Kraft? Good question! Actually, I was surprised how easy it was! The recipe below is something I concocted after spending 30 minutes or so browsing different mac and cheese recipes. It's a little bit Martha, a little bit allrecipes.com and a little bit Lacey.

I read one recipe that called for 'pasteurized cheese product food' - not cheese but cheese product food. Ew. You might as well just buy a box if you aren't going to use actual cheese. There is nothing from that recipe in my version.

Homemade Mac & Cheese
8-10 oz whole grain macaroni - cooked according to package directions and drained
4 oz shredded extra sharp white cheedar
4 oz shredded Gruyere
1 oz grated Romano cheese
1/4 butter
2 cups 1% milk
3 Tb flour

*Note measurements are approximate, I did not measure when I made this but it seems pretty hard to mess it up, so you can play by ear a little bit. Also if you don't want to shred the cheese, or don't own a cheese grater (but really why wouldn't you?), you can cut it up into small pieces.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt butter in small sauce pan, when it's completely melted mixed in flour. Add milk and stirring frequently, allow to simmer until it begins to thicken. Add cheese one handful at a time, reserving about 1/2 cup total of the cheeses. Mix pasta into cheese mixture and pour into a casserole dish. Top with remaining cheeses and sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake for 30 minutes.

Aside from possibly needing some paprika and garlic (you know me and my garlic), this was tasty and in spite of inhospitable summer weather, a huge hit at the dinner party, considering all the tasty items Abby served up, I consider that a major accomplishment.

Feta stuffed chicken

I had a little dinner party in the new place and all my friends had to give themselves "the tour" because I was too busy cooking to show anyone around when they arrived. Oops.

What was on the menu? Lots of yummy things. And wine, lots of wine. The main event was feta stuffed chicken (recipe notes below), broiled stuffed tomatoes, roasted lemon broccoli, a very nice pear-walnut salad brought by a friend and apple cake, also brought by a friend.

I had made the cheese stuffed chicken one other time, over a year ago but this time I shook it up a little.
The original recipe is here but instead of butterflying the chicken breasts, I bought thinner chicken cutlets and pounded/rolled them ever flatter (like when making chicken Kiev), put my cheese in the middle and rolled them up, securing with a toothpick. Also instead of stuffing with cheddar & cream cheese, I stuffed it with feta and cream cheese. Feta is always a good idea but I think you do need the cream cheese to get a nice melty center. I also did not put Romano cheese in with my breadcrumbs because I feel that most of the cheese gets wasted that way, instead I sprinkled it on top of the already breadcrumb-ed chicken and I actually used Parmesan and not Romano.

If I make them again, I might skip the butter-garlic-lemon topping. I'm just not sure it adds much to a dish already full of flavors. And fat, did I mention fat? Do I really need to pour butter on top of my cheese stuffed chicken? Probably not. It also makes at least 1 extra dish to wash, the real nail in the coffin. The first time I made this dish, I actually served it with pasta and Alfredo sauce, can you say heavy? Lesson learned. And this time around, went for vegetable focused sides.

The chicken seemed quite popular, though wine was the real attraction of the evening.