Low-fat Raspberry Cheesecake

My Taiwanese friend is finally back in town, and we had organized the cooking on Sunday. I found a very interesting dessert cookbook which was on sale a while back entitled A Year of Desserts by Martha Day. If you're a person with a sweet tooth, this book is a must. It has attractive, good-looking, step-by-step pictures. I wanted to convince a couple of people to come, I chose to bake a quick and light cheesecake. To make it light, it uses cottage cheese instead of cream cheese. Warning : this cheesecake is not as rich as the cheesecake using cream cheese.

Serves 6

Preparation Time : 15 mins

Baking Time : 1 hour

Printable Recipe

Ingredients

3/4 cup cottage cheese

2/3 cup natural yogurt

1 tbsp flour

3 tbsp white or brown sugar

1 egg + 1 egg white

juice of 1/2 lemon + lemon zest

170g fresh raspberries or blackberries

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Slightly oil an 8-inch cake tin and line with parchment paper.

2. In a food processor, process cottage cheese until smooth.

3. Transfer cottage cheese in a large bowl and stir in yogurt, sugar, egg and egg white.

4. Add lemon zest and juice. Fold in the berries.

5. Transfer mixture to the cake tin. Bake for 30 minutes or until just set. Turn off the oven and leave for an additional 30 minutes.

6. Run a knife at the edge of the cheesecake, and place it on a warm serving plate, removing the parchment paper. Serve warm.

Apple-Cinnamon Bread Pudding

From my last conference, one great dessert that they made is bread pudding. It tasted so good that I have to try to recreate this recipe. This morning, I was playing around with the ingredients and the quantity needed. It didn't turn out as the one at the conference, but still it tasted good. Here is my version, I'm open for suggestion on improving this dish.

Serves 6

Preparation Time : 15 mins

Baking Time : 45 mins

Printable Recipe

Ingredients

2 tbsp margarine or butter
2 medium apples, peeled, cored and cubed
3 cups baguette or bread (about 3 slices)
1/2 cup raisins (or dried fruits)
4 eggs
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup milk
1 cup whipping cream

1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Procedure

1. In a small saucepan, heat margarine or butter over medium heat. Cover and cook apples until soft. Stir occasionally.

2. In a 8 x 8 inch baking pan, toss apples, raisins and bread.

3. In a medium bowl, beat eggs and sugar until dissolved. Blend in the milk, cream, vanilla and cinnamon.

4. Pour batter to bread. Cover and refrigerate for 30 mins.

5. Preheat oven to 350F.

6. Bake for 45 mins until the center cuts clean. Let it cool and serve warm or cold with maple syrup or yogurt.

Cannelloni with Beef and Sausage filling

The past few days, I attended a conference not about my field of research but about current and future technology for home energy saving, careers after academic and biological sensors. During that time, I enjoyed life in Eden with outdoor activities, and great food. Just to tell you, I ate a lot. I managed to pick up a few recipes from the chefs. I will make them in the future.

At my collective cooking, I had to use the remaining of the cannelloni pasta, and at the last minute, on EEE, I found this recipe. I always wanted to combine two kinds of meat and see the results. I made a few changes to the recipe as the uncooked cannelloni pasta are smaller than the cooked manicotti.

Serves 4-6
Preparation Time : 15 mins
Cooking Time : 45 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

1 small onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 lb ground beef
1/4 lb pork sausage
300g whole-milk ricotta cheese
2 tbsp parsley
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
2 tbsp Italian seasonings
grated mozzarella cheese
salt and pepper

Procedure

1. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Cook onion until transparent, then add garlic and cook until fragrant. Add ground beef and sausage until browned. Drain fat and set aside.

2. Combine ricotta, egg, parmesan and parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste.

3. Combine meat mixture with cheese mix.

4. Preheat oven to 350F.

5. Spread half of the tomato sauce at the bottom of a 13 x 9 inch baking pan. Add 1 tbsp of Italian seasonings.

6. Transfer all the filling into a pastry bag or plastic bag. If plastic bad is used, cut one corner and fill the cannelloni pasta.

7. Lay each cannelloni onto the sauce.

8. Top with the remaining sauce and Italian seasonings.

9. Bake for 40 mins. Remove pan from the oven and top with the mozzarella cheese. Bake for 5 more minutes. Serve.

Apple-Potato Salad

Finally, back with our usual Friday's collective cooking. Last week, we have invited a new graduate student from our program so he can get the feel on how we do the cooking. My Mexican made her creative apple and potato salad as an appetizer. A mix of cooked and cold ingredients. The potatoes you can have it softened or slight bite to it.

Serves 6
Preparation Time : 15 mins
Cooking Time : 20 mins

Ingredients

4 rustic potatoes
2 apples, cubed
1 small onion, julienned
1 red bell pepper, julienned
2 tbsp sour cream
1 hard-boiled egg per serving

Preparation

1. In a medium pot, cook potatoes until soft or to your liking in boiling water.

2. Meanwhile, in a skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Cook onion and red bell pepper until softened. Set aside.

3. Cut potatoes into cube and transfer into the skillet. Fry potatoes with salt and pepper until browned.

4. In a large bowl, combine potatoes, apples and sour cream.

5. Finally, add cooked red pepper and onion.

6. Serve with sliced hard-boiled egg.

Cannelloni with meat sauce

We are restarting collective cooking this Friday. August 7 was my brother's birthday and I wanted to make something big. I wish I could invested time to make a 3-layers cake, but I ended up making a cannelloni dish with a homemade meat sauce. I didn't expected that these express cannelloni would expand that much during the baking. Sorry about the not-so-good looking pictures, I tried my best.

Serves 4-6

Preparation Time : 10 mins

Cooking Time : 15 mins

Baking Time : 45 mins

Printable Recipe

Ingredients

Sauce

400g ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 28oz. can crushed tomatoes

1 tbsp salt

2 tbsp Italian seasonings

Filling

500g cottage cheese

1 egg, beaten

2 tbsp parsley, minced

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

12 cannellonis, instant or cooked according to package

1 - 1 1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese

Preparation

1. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat and cook onion, garlic and ground beef until browned.

2. Drain fat from the pan. Add crushed tomatoes, spices and salt. Simmer for 10 mins.

3. Meanwhile, prepare the filling. In a medium bowl, combine cottage cheese, egg, parsley and parmesan.

4. Preheat oven to 375F.

5. Pour half of the meat sauce at the bottom of a 13 x 9 inch pan.

6. With a spoon, fill up the cannellonis with the cottage cheese mix. Put it over the meat sauce.

7. Cover the cannellonis with the remaining meat sauce.

8. Bake for 40 minutes. Remove pan from the oven and top with the mozzarella cheese. Bake for 5 more minutes. Serve.

Cherry Crisp

This month, most of my collegues and friends are on vacation, the collective cooking will be back hopefully at the end of August. The next few weeks will be about some dishes I made. I miss the taste of freshly baked crisp and it has been months I haven't bake one. This is still cherry season, why not make a cherry crisp.

Serves 6
Preparation Time : 10 mins
Baking Time : 45 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

5-6 cups cherries, pitted
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 cup Quaker's oats
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup margarine, melted

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Mix pitted cherries with cornstarch and 1/4 cup brown sugar.

3. In a medium bowl, combine flour, oats, cinnamon, brown sugar and margarine.

4. Place cherries in a 8 x 8 inch baking pan and top with the oats mix.

5. Bake for 45 mins until golden brown and bubbling.