New York Cheesecake

This recipe is based on one published in the 1990 edition of The Serendipity Cookbook. The recipe as it was published then included enough ingredients to make at least two very large cheesecakes. I've also changed the recipe for the crust to be a graham cracker crust rather than the original ground walnut crust because unless you have really, really fresh walnuts, they always taste a bit stale to me.

So here is my recipe for one deep nine inch cheesecake.

First, you need a twelve inch springform pan, the straight sided sort of pan with a clippy hinge that spreads the sides out when you open it and with a removable bottom. I've made cheesecakes in regular deep sided pie tins too, but pie tins are not usually deep enough, so if you are using those you should make crust enough for two pies and be okay with two smaller, less deep cheesecakes that you are happy to cut slices straight out of the pan (because you won't be able to remove their sides as you can do with springform pans).

Ingredients: The Filling

2 pounds cream cheese, softened at room temperature (yup, unbutton the top button of those blue jeans right now)
2 cups white sugar
6 large free range eggs
2 tablespoons vanilla
2 cups sour cream
1/3 cup lemon juice (from fresh squeezed lemons is best)

Ingredients: The Crust

14-16 double Nabisco Sugar Honey Graham Crackers
4 tablespoons dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 stick/4 oz melted butter

Crush graham crackers in a bowl, add sugar, and cinnamon and mix well.
Add the melted butter and mix thoroughly.
The mixture should hold together when squeezed in the hand, but crumble easily.
With fingertips, press the mixture into the bottom and sides of a buttered springform pan as evenly as possible.

Prepare filling: in a large bowl, beat together cream cheese and sugar until mixture is really soft.
Add eggs and vanilla and keep beating.
Add the sour cream and beat thoroughly.
Whisk in the lemon juice.

Fill a shallow pan with boiling water and place at the bottom of the oven to humidify the air and keep the cake from cracking.

Pour the batter over the crust.
Bake at 300F/150C for one hour. Turn off the oven and let the cake set in the oven for a further hour.
Cool, at room temperature, wrap in plastic and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Garnish with fresh fruit of the season, or with sliced curls of lemon or orange peel.

This cheesecake freezes very well.

Meatloaf

1 lb mince/lean hamburger
1 onion
mushrooms
four or five slices bread, stale bread is fine
1 or 2 eggs
worcestershire sauce
BBQ sauce or ketchup
olive oil or vegetable oil
1 or 2 cloves of garlic

Chop onions, mushrooms and garlic and sautee in oil. Leave on side to cool.
Toast the bread, place in a large mixing bowl and with your hands or a potato masher crush into fine crumbs.
Add the mince/lean hamburger. 
Add egg(s).
Add a generous splash of worcestershire sauce and a good squeeze of your favourite BBQ sauce or ketchup.
Add the sauteed onion, mushroom and garlic.

With your hands or if you are squeamish use a wooden spoon and mix all the ingredients together well.

Place the mixture in a small greased bread tin, or else shape into a sort of flattened ball and place on a greased baking tray.

Bake in oven at 150C/300F for about 45 minutes.

Serve with mashed potatoes and peas. A classic.

Thin Crepe-like Pancakes

These thin pancakes are really yummy scrummy and can be made for savoury or sweet. My measurements aren't very exact, so you might have to experiment a bit to get the right proportions, but basically all you need is:

1 heaping mugful flour
1 or 2 eggs
1 mugful milk
3 tablespoons melted butter/margarine

Place flour in a large bowl. Add eggs and milk and beat until smooth. The mixture should be fairly runny, about the consistency of a smoothie. Add a little water if the batter needs thinning. Stir in the melted butter. The melted butter not only adds flavour, it also helps the batter not stick in the pan.

Melt a small pat of butter in a frying pan and get it nice and hot, nearly smoking. Pour a ladle-ful of the batter into a hot frying pan and and turn the pan around to spread the batter all around. Turn the pancake with a spatula when the edges of the pancake begin to curl a little. The pancake only needs cooking on the flip side for just a few seconds and then it can be turned out onto a large plate.

Cook the rest of the batter until you have a pile of pancakes. Pancakes can be served with a sprinkling of sugar and lemon, or maple syrup, or you can roll each one up like a wrap with any of the following:

grated cheese
cubed ham
cream cheese and strawberry jam
sour cream and chives/spring onion
hummus
sauteed mushrooms
or anything else

Oreo oh oh ohs

1 1/4 cups (112g) plain flour
1/2 cup (50g) unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (192g) sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (115g) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg
For the filling:
1/4 cup (58g) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1/4 cup (58g) vegetable shortening
2 cups (260g) sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375°F.
In a food processor, or with a wooden spoon, thoroughly mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. Blend in the butter, and then the egg either in food processor or with your hands (the warmth of your hands melts in the butter and makes it come to like a thick, crumbly dough). Continue processing or mixing until dough comes together in a mass.
Take rounded teaspoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet two inches or so apart. With moistened hands, slightly flatten the dough. Bake for 9 minutes, rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool.
To make the cream, place butter and shortening in a mixing bowl, and gradually beat in the sugar and vanilla. Beat for 2 to 3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.
To assemble the cookies, spread cream onto every other chocolate biscuit. Place another cookie, equal in size to the first, on top of the cream. Lightly press, to work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie. Continue this process until all the cookies have been sandwiched with cream. Dunk generously in a large glass of milk. OM NOM NOM

Pumpkin Pie

3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 large eggs
1 can Libby's pure pumpkin (available to buy online in the UK from: http://www.americansoda.co.uk/uk/American-Soda/Home/default.aspx)
1 can evaporated whole mile
1 package short crust pastry (or else use a trusted pie crust recipe of your own)

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl until smooth and creamy. Let rest.

Roll out pastry and line a nine inch pie tin, trimming of the edges.

Prick the bottom of the tin and bake the pastry for ten minutes at 150 degrees so it is just barely cooked.

Remove the pastry from the oven and carefully pour the pumpkin mixture into the pan.

Bake the pie at 200 degrees for 40 minutes or until a knife inserted near the centre comes out clean.

Allow to cool. Serve immediately or refrigerate. Serve with cream or ice cream.

This pie freezes really well either uncooked or cooked.

A Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie is, well, what can I say, just not the American way.

Recipe for Goo.

This is my all time favourite kitchen science recipe. It is I think what might be scientifically called a solid-liquid, but I am no great scientist and I am not sure if it is actually a scientific state of matter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_matter

But what I do know is that it is a bit like quicksand in that when the material is compressed it acts like a solid and when it is let go of it behaves more like a liquid.

Several years ago some bright spark make a quick fortune selling the stuff brightly coloured in cool packaging and called it Oobleck.

Anyway, here is the recipe:

           One 8 oz cup or mugful of cornflour/cornstarch

           A half cup (4oz) of water

           Mix together in a bowl.

          The gloop should go solid when squeezed in your hand and then instantly go runny when you
          let go.

          If the gloop is too runny add a bit more cornflour until the consistency is just right.

          For good effect, add a drop or two of food colouring.

Hello my dears. I thought it would be fun to create a family blog as a sort of album of our ideas, photos, recipes, cool facts, interesting links and whatever else comes to mind that we might like to gather together and share with each other.

I thought I would start by posting a few of your mama's recipes. It will be fun for me to write them down and to have a reason to experiment in the kitchen when you are all spread across the globe.

I hope you will add your own thoughts and recipes and ideas too. I'm sure George would really appreciate a recipe for those amazing Oreo cookies...