Blueberry Cheesecake

Last August, a dear friend of mine celebrated her birthday and I promised that I would bake her favorite on her birthday, Blueberry Cheesecake. Incidentally, it was in one of my baking goals for this year, so it’s just convenient that I’d be able to bake it and I can give it as a present for a friend on her birthday (and possibly on Christmas too).

Looking around online, I tried to find the easiest cheesecake recipe I can find and I got this Blueberry Cheesecake recipe from one of Noemi’s blogs. It seemed easy enough, so I decided to stock up the ingredients and cook it. My mom is really supportive of my baking endeavors, so she readily bought the ingredients for me.

Who knew ingredients for Blueberry Cheesecake can be so expensive?

Anyway, I’ve plurked about this while I was cooking it (too lazy to find the actual Plurk to link — will do tomorrow) but the photo on the left is the actual thing I cooked. Yum yum, it still makes me hungry. :D

Some notes on this:

• As Noemi mentioned, it’s not too sweet. I like it that way, as the blueberry really gives its sweetness.
• The ones I cooked are thinner than the usual cheesecakes since I used a thinner pan. I ended up having two thin cheesecakes instead of one. No one’s complaining. :P
• Blueberry is yummy. :D So is the cheese part of the cake after it has been baked. I can’t stop nibbling on it — I personally think I can eat a cheesecake plain. :P
• I personally think the walnut is optional, as it gives kind of a weird taste with the crust. I tried grinding it on the second try, but it’s taste is really distinct that it turns off some people. Next time I’ll try cooking it without the walnut in the crust.

Yummy dessert, especially after it has been chilled. :D I’d definitely cook this again, and next time try it with different toppings. I think this wouldn’t be good with those on diet or on weight loss pills, but I can use a lighter kind of cream cheese (those with less fat) so it will be a bit less guilty. :P

Next on the list! This cheesecake. Or an apple pie. Or a double layered chocolate cake! Yum!

Dairy Queen’s Yule Flip Peppermint Chip

One of the things I like about working in Eastwood (besides that I live nearby) is the fact that there is a Dairy Queen restaurant (should it even be called a restaurant?) near the office. I discovered it when I was frequenting this area during my application/interview times and my brother and I bought some Blizzards. When I was younger, there used to be a Dairy Queen stall in the mall near where we live, and we used to buy Blizzards there all the time — my favorite being M&M’s and Butterfinger. I remember these Blizzards being much larger than it is now…but that’s not my point.

It’s suffice to say that I love ice cream, ergo, I love Dairy Queen. During my second week at work, Grace and I managed to go to Dairy Queen about four times during that week. Brownie Temptation Blizzard = yum. Dairy Queen = happy food. :9

So earlier this week, I was really stressed with some of the work I had to do, so I deemed myself worthy of a Blizzard. When I got to Dairy Queen, I saw the big new sign of their Blizzard of the Month. I told myself I’d get one once the entire thing is over, and now it’s over, I finally got the chance to try…

According to the website:

Peppermint candy pieces and chocolate chunks, blended with creamy vanilla soft serve. Try one “Yule” love it!

The Peppermint Chip Blizzard is their Christmas Blizzard, and from the looks of it…it does look Christmas-sy, being red and all. Just as what the description says, it contains their creamy vanilla soft serve ice cream, mixed with chocolate chunks and peppermint candy pieces. The candy gives the ice cream a good crunch that nuts and crispies could. The chocolate gives it extra texture from the rough candy. I think they also put some peppermint flavor on the ice cream, hence the red coloring.
It’s not too sweet, thankfully. But it does have a weird taste in the mouth. At first I thought it tasted like medicine, but I realized it was only the peppermint. Eh? It’s not unpleasant…in fact, you’d get used to the taste after a few spoonfuls. It’s just very…cold. Okay, that’s a silly description given that it’s ice cream. But seriously, the peppermint gives the dessert even more coolness — I half expected to get brain freeze after eating the 12oz cup.

All in all, the Yule Flip Peppermint Chip Blizzard is an okay treat. It’s not a favorite, but it’s nice to eat it once in a while. If you’re not fond of mint, then I don’t think you’d enjoy this. ^^;

This Blizzard is available at all Dairy Queens for the Christmas season I think, starting at P99 for a 12oz cup (it’s not available for 9oz, so no small treats. You could share, though :D).

Ahh. This is enough Dairy Queen for now. I’m going to need Miracle burn after all the dairy I consumed this week. Ergh. :-s

Food Trips

It’s way past the time it should be dinner time, but until now we don’t have anything to eat just yet. Ever since my mom went to Saipan, our menu at home has been limited to my cooking skills. I’m not always the healthiest cook mostly because of the limited time and knowledge for cooking (ask me to bake, then that’s a different story :P). What my brother and I usually have at home is something fast, easy to cook and prepare (and that sounds exactly like fastfood).

But let me just say, I am so sick of eating the same kind of food every day. Argh. Fastfood ain’t fun to eat everyday, not to mention unhealthy. I miss being able to eat different kinds of lutong bahay¹ that my mom cooks. I miss having to smell different kinds of smell everytime I go home, and being surprised by the food that she cooks. Hay, I really need to learn how to cook proper meals soon, and actually cook them.

So now that we’re talking about food, here are some of the food I’m craving for right now. Eat your heart out!

1. Crispy fried tilapia - as in very, very crispy, like when I bite I can hear its crispiness. Yum yum. That, with lots of tomatoes, rice and some patis (fish sauce).
2. Crispy fried galunggong - Yum yum yum.
3. Daing na bangus. Same as above. :)
4. Isaw. So unhealthy, but so good especially with lots and lots of spicy vinegar. Enough said.
5. Fried liempo - just the way my mom used to cook it.
6. Chicken with mushroom sauce - my brother and I tried to cook this once, but the chicken wasn’t all good anymore, so it tasted a bit too yucky already. Boo.
7. Scrambled eggs and tuna - in short, torta. I’m gonna cook this one tomorrow, actually. :P The spicier the tuna, the better. :)
8. My mom’s macaroni and squash soup - my favorite sick day meal. It’s got no meat, just tofu, squash, macaroni and lots of oregano. :)
9. Pancit Malabon - I want it full of flavor. :) With lots of hard boiled eggs. Haha. There’s a Pancit Malabon booth at Eastwood, must check that out.
10. Tapsilog - I want the classic one, not the ones I can buy at Eastwood. Something ala Vivian’s Tapsilog in Marikina. =9 Big chunks of tapa, garlicky rice and sunny-side up eggs.
11. Sinigang na bangus - milkfish stewed with different kinds of vegetables with a sour tamarind flavor.
12. Sinigang na hipon - same as above, only shrimp. :) Better be careful with the allergies, though. :D
13. A nice, fresh and healthy salad. We usually have our own salad bars at home and my mom usually puts different kinds of stuff in it: grapes, ripe mangoes, nuts, pomelo. Mix that together with the other usual salad stuff (lettuce, tomato, carrots, hard boiled eggs, etc) drizzled with natural Ceasar Salad dressing. Yummeh.
14. Kwek-kwek. Translation: quail eggs covered with orange colored flour. It’s not exactly the healthiest kind of food, but it’s good to eat every once in a while. :) Mike! Kwek-kwek break?
15. This has to be the weirdest, but I’m so craving for Chocnut.
    .

Argh, now I am even hungrier. Time to raid the kitchen and get cooking. Hmm. I guess I’ll just go cook the hotdogs right now for dinner. Tomorrow I shall cook again for lunch, and again it’s something fried. But I swear to myself that I’m going to find some veggies from whatever garden of life there is in Eastwood just so I can eat a bit healthier. *determined nod*

1. Read: home-cooked food [«]

Bloggers Taste Asia

After spending four years in DLSU for college, one of the important things I have learned is this: food is not cheap. Yes, even for the stereotyped “rich Lasalistas”, we scrimp on food. The cheapest food we can get around the premises is around P25-P30, I think? But that still isn’t cheap, as compared to say, UP. So whenever there’s some kind of event — be it college week, YFC event, org event or university event — we’re all on the lookout for free food. We’re not patay gutom ((Okay, how do I translate this? Dead hungry?)), mind you, we can just be really stingy on food since everything else around us costs a lot.

And besides, a lot of orgs give out free food during their activities. Even if the food is basically the same, it’s still free lunch. :P

But that’s not the point; I just want to share that so I can segue to the event that Aileen is plugging (and yes, I know it’s not a smooth segue :p). Event details are as follows:

WHO: Pinoy Bloggers
WHAT: SM Hypermart invites Bloggers to get a “Taste of Asia”
WHERE: Taste Asia restaurant (beside SM Hypermart) in SM Mall of Asia
WHEN: July 3, 2007 (Tuesday), 7:30PM

Friends, this is free food! Not only that, you’ll get to meet fellow bloggers as well! Come one, come all!…

…wait, it’s only for the first 100 active bloggers who sign up pala. To sign up, post a comment on Aileen’s entry or on any of the coordinator’s blogs that can be found in the same entry (each coordinator leads a category, I think, like Yuga’s looking for 10 Tech bloggers and Jomar’s looking for 10 “Religious” Bloggers).

And to those bloggers who I owe something, like Pierre (the CDs) and Jun (some baked goodies, am I right?), please remind me about it the weekend before the event — I’m bound to forget it. ^^;

See you there!

Easy Apple Crisp

As mentioned in my Friday’s Feast, I embarked in another “culinary” endeavor this weekend. Ever since baking the Chocolate Revel Bars a month ago, I started feeling the need to bake again like I did back in high school. So now I’m easing myself into the baking slowly, partly because I don’t have time and partly because baked goodies means more flabs coming in. So I’m doing it one weekend at a time.

Last weekend I cooked some Coconut Macaroons which didn’t really turn out as yummy as I thought it would be (the almond extract made it taste too much like it had liquor in it), and Monday found me looking for recipes for an apple pie because it’s one of my dreams to bake a perfect apple pie (along with the perfect double layer chocolate cake). The recipe search brought me to this: Easy Apple Crisp. The recipe looked easy and a lot of people were raving about it in the website, so I copied it and was all set to make it for the weekend. :)

I modified the recipe a bit from the original one, based on the suggestions of the commenters. Here we go:

EASY APPLE CRISP

7 small apples - peeled, cored and sliced
1 cup water
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease a 9×13 inch baking dish.
2. Arrange apples in an even layer in the baking dish. Sprinkle 1 tsp cinnamon and 1 tsp nutmeg over apples.
3. Put 1 tsp vanilla in 1 cup water and pour over apples.
4. In a separate bowl, mix flour, brown sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon and butter. Stir until well blended, mixture will be crumbly. Sprinkle mixture over apples, covering hem.
5. Bake in oven for 50-55 minutes.

Serve warm or cold with whipped cream or ice cream. Makes 12 servings.

Some notes on this creation:

• The pre-baking mixture looks the same with the post-baked. The usual “stick a toothpick in the middle of the batter to see if it’s clean” or “wait until it is golden brown” is not applicable since the toothpick will not come out clean and the mixture on top does not turn into golden brown after. The difference between the baked and not baked product is that the apple has carmelized (is that the right term?) and you can see some goo on the sides from the heat when it’s baked. :) Slicing it through, you’ll see semi-translucent apples with lots of apple gooey-ness inside. Yum.
• This really tastes yummier with ice cream (see picture — sorry it’s blurry; Captain Tal took it. That’s cookies and cream flavored ice cream). Of course, it’s a lot sweeter, so if you plan to make this and serve with ice cream, lessen the sugar to 3/4 cup. Yes, putting ice cream or whipped cream on it, it’s just become a lot fattening. :P
• The one I made is quite thin, because I used a big pan to cook it. A smaller pan would make it thicker, or add more apples. :P
• Speaking of apples, I think different kinds of apples would give a different taste to this. Try using green apples or the big ones (is that Fuji apples?) to see how it would taste like.
• Other variations in the recipe include: putting lemon juice on apples, mixing oats with the flour mixture and sprinkling nuts on top.

Yes, it’s yummy! I’ll be serving it in our SFC household later. :) I’ll do some experimenting with it in the next few weeks when I have the chance to get some apples.  Next up on the baking list: chocolate chip cookies! Yum. :9