Sweet baby cheeses

In November I made my first ever cheesecake. I had thought it would be as tricky as rocket science but it turned out to be a sinch, especially as you can buy cheesecake filling ready made.

So I made another one. This one is adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe, and rounded out a gorgeous meal of salads and barbecued sausages and haloumi with my fellow featurettes and feature-fellas.

It looked like this:

Here's how I did it.
I took 500g of frozen berries out of the freezer and let them thaw.
I took a packet of wine biscuits and 150g of melted butter and whizzed them together in the food processor until the biscuits were fine crumbs and the butter was worked through it.
I took a 23cm springform pan, greased it with butter, and spooned the biscuit butter mix into it, then smoothed it down to form the base. I put that in the fridge for an hour.
Then I got a mixing bowl and added 500g of cream cheese, about 150g of creme fraiche, a splash of vanilla essence, 120g caster sugar, the zest and juice of a lemon and whisked the blazes out of it until it was all creamy and velvety and could be eaten straight off the whisk.
When the base had set in the fridge, I spooned the cheesy filling onto it and popped it back in the fridge.
Just before serving, I took the frozen berries and 100g of caster sugar and warmed them on the stove so the sugar was melted through it. I slathered that on top.
So, so good.

Baking day

How to make banana muffins, by Harper
First, mash your banana:
Then get your tools. Mix up the ingredients until you get them on your face:

And spoon the delicious mixture into the muffin tin:

Voila, tasty muffins:

Eating with my homies

Ange and Sweeney joined us at the cul-de-sac for a feast on Saturday night. And as I was putting the food on the table, I realised most of the meal was made from scratch. There was homemade pita bread, homemade hummus, homemade tztsaki made with homemade yogurt and homegrown mint, and the chicken was marinated in homemade souvlaki sauce. If we weren't in the process of finding a new house to live in, I would expect that come summer there would be homegrown tomatoes and lettuce to stuff the souvlakis with.

*super pleased*

we can't say cheese, our mouths are full

Birthday boy, home alone

I've got a bit of catching up on the blog front to do, so here we go starting with the Postie's birthday. We both had the day off work, and I attempted to give him the Most Awesome Birthday Ever (TM) by:

• carting the kid off to creche
• making him eggs benedict and poaching the most perfect eggs ever
• making him a birthday cake while he was out mountain biking
• paying sneakily for his afternoon massage (though the massager guy didn't realise this and P paid for it himself)
• taking him out for swell dinner with our pals at a Mexcian restaurant where a certain girl had too many margaritas because it's been a long time since she really drank anything.. ahem.

The next day, P and Harper jetted off to Auckland to see Gparents, Gmother, and cousin Jessica and her folks, and I was left in blissful solitude for four whole days. I did stuff. I had long soaks in the bath. I ate every takeaway possible. I finished the orange sweatshirt that I started a year ago in sewing class. I watched three seasons of The L Word. I left cups of tea all over the house anywhere I wanted. It was awesome. Oh, and the boys had a nice time up norf too.

Trying to escape from the godmother, One Tree Hill

Painting and planting

The Postie has an exhibition coming up at Roar Gallery in Abel Smith Street soon, and to get all his work ready he's turned our house into an art studio. Most days he sports a wee smear of paint somewhere on his person (yesterday it was his cheek, the day before that the cheek of his trackpants) and can often be seen looking like he's staring into space, but he's actually staring at one of his paintings propped up against the couch or something. It's exciting seeing his paintings evolve, and wondering what tinkering he will do to them next. It's a group exhibition with our friends Ange Lee and Chris Bramwell, and is called Three: Good Things Come In. It opens at Roar on November 18. Come and take a peek if you're around and want to see good Art.

The Postie is not the only industrious one in the cul-de-sac. I am proving not to be a black thumb in the garden after all. I nursed some lettuces to reasonable size in the late winter and have managed to get some seeds to sprout without too much effort. It's not an ideal garden - we are renting and will only be here another 10 months or so if we're lucky, so I'm not investing a lot of time and effort into producing perfect soil and raised beds etc. I'm also afraid that if I get carried away half of the stuff I plant will die. Anyway, I'm aiming for some beetroot, baby carrots, rocket, cherry tomatoes, more lettuce, and basil, and have chives, parsley, mint, oregano and thyme already well on their way. Wish me luck ...

I am a Domestic Goddess, part one

Today I am making pasta sauce ... from scratch. Makes me feel like Nigella Lawson, only I'm wearing a NZ Post sweatshirt with little bits of baby rice on it rather than a low cut top and lashings of eye makeup.

Here's how it goes:

Take a kilo or so of tomatoes, chop them up, plop them into a saucepan. Take a gloop of red wine vinegar, a smattering of herbs (basil and oregano for me please), a chopped onion, three cloves of garlic, and add to tomatoes. Cook on a medium heat until they are all mushy, then you can zap them in the food processor or with a whiz-stick thing or just something that will smush them up more. Then strain to get rid of the pips and skin, and voila. Helloooo Saucy. You can further reduce it to thicken it, if you so desire. Bon appetit ...