A Floral Cheesecake

My friend Keri has been chronicling her adventures in baking over at  http://bakewithkeri.tumblr.com/. Like most websites, I don't have ready access to it, and after hearing about her rose and coconut cheesecake from her flatmate, and my grandfather teasing me to make something else after making a coconut and chocolate cake for my aunt's birthday (recipe also courtesy of Keri), I figured I'd asked her for the recipe and give it a try. 

And then couldn't find half the things necessary. However, I didn't actually look very hard for them. But I made some substitutions (visible below) and ended up with a tasty cheesecake. It definitely didn't turn out as pretty as Keri's, and may or may not have been as heavenly, but it's definitely simple enough and tasty enough to garner making again. 

I also used just a bowl, wooden spoon, and whisk to make this and found that to be fine, but I left Keri's directions for beating the cheese in place. 

Rose and Coconut Cheese Cake

Base Ingredients 

- 220 g biscuits (I used coconut ones)

- 50 g shredded coconut

- 100 g butter, melted

Directions

1) Break up biscuits somehow. Either use the double baggied and rolling pin method, or, my preferred method: a deep bowl and a meat mallet.

2) Mix  coconut and melted butter into biscuit crumbs. 

3) Press into bottom and 3 cm up sides of a greased 23 cm spring pan. Leave in the fridge for 30 minutes

to set.

Filling Ingredients 

- 500 g cream cheese

- 200 ml coconut milk (from a can)

- 2 Tablespoons sugar

- 2 eggs

- 3 Tablespoons rosewater (adjust to taste)

Directions 

1) Preheat the oven to 170 C (325 F). 

2) Beat the cream cheese with an electric

beater. Add the coconut milk in two lots of 100 ml and beat

well to get rid of any lumps. Best in the sugar, followed by the eggs one at a time. 

Stir in the rosewater. 

3) Pour filling mixture into prepared base. Bake for 45 minutes at 325F, or until it isn't jiggly. After which, turn off the oven and leave cake in for an additional hour.

4) Let cheesecake cool on the counter for 30

minutes or until it's cool enough to place in fridge. Chill 4 hour or overnight.

5) Run knife around edge before releasing from pan. 

Travel Thoughts

I've been incredibly quiet lately. 2012 marked my worst year ever (with this blog at least, it definitely was not my worst year of life.) And I know I cooked. And I know I ate food. And I know I did little in the way of creative cooking this past fall, eating a few simple staples, and the occasional "let's see what's in the kitchen that isn't my roommates that I can turn into an edible meal." And by occasional, I mean that's really all I did when it came to making food. For example, dinner tonight was eggs and salsa with toast. And then a few hours later I finally tried that microwaved brownie in a cup I've been seeing all over for years - my sweet tooth needed satisfied, and a clementine just wasn't doing it for me.



But that's not what I wanted to talk about. Travel. Travel is glorious, and a perfect time for trying new foods. Like unassuming Burmese food in Burlingame, California or a delicious quinoa-based veggie burger in London, England.

Meals can be memorable. Or forgettable. And, to be honest, most of them are probably more on the forgettable side. I think I remember the oysters I ate in San Francisco more because it was just a lot of fun to spend the day with my dad than because of the fact I actually ate oysters and they weren't entirely unpleasant.



But, I think what I'm trying to say is that I like food. I like cooking. I like eating. I like trying new things. I hope I continue to have opportunities to do these things.

And I really want to find a Burmese restaurant in this part of the country. And return to London so I can try the Veggie Table's Heavenly Halloumi burger with their onion jam.

The KFC Double Down Adventure: By Ashleigh

This is a stick-up! I want everyone to put their forks in the air slowly and hand over your good taste.

Ah, so this blog is a usually bastion of fine desserts and food, but here to bring some REAL CLASS is I, the ubiquitous Ashleigh, bringing you the wonders of the ultra-classy KFC Double Down. But really, this entry will be about the ridiculous lengths taken to acquire this gold-standard of fast food ridiculosity and how the DD is really just the culmination of a thousand of years of globalized oppression brought on by the…ahem. Nothing to see here! Moving on.

It all started with some ITG (In the Groove, the slightly more difficult and apparently more awesome version of DDR). No, actually, it started with Colin picking my friends (Mar and Agent Tsai) and me up from the 40, but really, who needs to know that? (Except now you know all of the characters in this little drama, see that was clevar.) So, we went to the arcade, owned some noobs at Ski Ball, got owned at ITG (except for Colin.) and decided to leave when the locals decided to cut in line and take off their shirts BEFORE playing.

I never thought I’d be thankful for douches but…I have a new found appreciation for them, as Axe-drenched tornado warnings. No sooner than we had buckled our seat-belts, the tornado sirens went off. Me, being a hardened Kansas veteran of many severe storms, determined, since the sky was not yet green, that we should go find a KFC anyway and watch the radar as we went. It was a great idea, and was working until Susan (the GPS) started taking us right into the middle of the storm. And then the sky turned green. And then we made a U-turn. Colin suggested that we go home and so Mar pushed the correct buttons on the GPS and we were off. As this point, my brain switched into full storm-excitement mode aka OMG I LOVE STORMS OMGOMGOMG THIS IS SO AWESOME mode ™. I was just staring at the sky, taunting my friends back home via text (who were super jealous), and occasionally offering reassurances to the team (yeah, we’re a team now). So, I didn’t really watch where we were going. I did start paying attention when we started crossing the river.

Me: “Hey Colin. I thought you lived near the university.”
Colin: “yeah, I do. Why?”
Me: “Uhm, we’re crossing the river.”
Colin: “#$@!”
Me: “Hey Mariam, did you press the ‘home’ button on Susan?”
Mar: “Yessss…”
Me: “Well, Colin’s from New Hampshire.”
Mar & AT: “…”

So they say everything happens for a reason, and in this case, by getting turned around in ghetto East St. Louis, we managed to avoid the worst of the storm AKA death by tornado. By the time we made it back across town, the sun was shining, the freeway was slightly flooded, and KFC was looking fantastic.


Susan decided not to be a jerk and guided us to the objective of the day. Too exhausted to brave the unsanitary confines of the restaurant, we opted for the drive-thru and the relative comfort of the apartment, which brings me to the food part of this blog.


The KFC Double Down, as you might know, is a “bunless” sandwich that consists of cheese, “Colonel Sauce” (mayonnaise, for real), and two pieces of bacon between two pieces of fried chicken. I’m probably going to shock the whole blogosphere by saying this, but it’s really not that gross. Honestly, if you slapped the whole thing between two buns, we’d have a double chicken burger with bacon. Which IS disgustingly disgusting, but it’s not the harbinger of doom that everyone’s been freaking out about. The most horrible thing about it was that it was incredibly salty, just like KFC’s fried chicken. I was genuinely disappointed in the lack of greasy-monstrosityness. As far as taste goes, it was very salty, so it was “good,” meaning that the four of us ate it rather quickly and guiltily. Sadly, the bacon and sauce were buried between the chicken breasts, and only a hint of cheese managed to squeeze through. In a way, this blog entry is like the Double Down, in that the two anecdotes that encapsulate the point of the entry are greater and more delicious than the objective.


We couldn’t subsist on a few bites of fried chicken alone after a long day of being storm chased, so we decided to take Agent Tsai (a Canadian) to Steak ‘n Shake, because “they don’t have those in Canada.” So, battle-scarred and hungry, we piled into the Subaru and told Susan to take us to the nearest SnS (but not before we gawked at a full double-bow rainbow for five minutes). Well, Susan decided to be a complete wanker and direct us to a Steak ‘n Shake that DID NOT EXIST. It was like the Twilight Zone, but unlike the Twilight Zone, we didn’t receive a somewhat twisted moral lesson or become trapped in some sort of inter-dimensional rift, I just yelled at the GPS and we found one that actually existed. Not quite as awesome, but I digress. Steak ‘n Shake, was well, steak(ish) for the half that couldn’t have a shake. The other half had shakes, but no steak. Did that just blow your mind? Because it really shouldn’t. I had the Frisco melt, which was a SNS burger on sourdough with “Frisco sauce” (just a crude imitation of the perfection that is In-N-Out’s Special Sauce). It was pretty good, although I really wasn’t paying attention to it; I was really hungry, and jealous of Mar’s mocha/vanilla shake. (Curse you lactose intolerance!) I think the ice cube sculptures were the best part of the meal…no, our waiter aka “Robo-man” was the best part. I think he might have been lobotomized. Because of lactose-challenged status of half of our group, we decided to seek dessert elsewhere.


Well, yours truly had a “brilliant” idea that we should procure a dessert-only reservation at Harvest. A couple of older, more knowledgeable college students had informed me that Harvest had excellent desserts, and had been there in casual wear. So, running with that information, we made reservations (that should have been our first clue) and finally made it there after becoming lost AGAIN. (Incidentally, Susan was grounded for a few weeks.) So, the amazing desserts thing was correct, but the casual wear? Let’s just add this experience to the awkward-things-Ashleigh-has-dragged-her-friends-into list. However, our waitress was wonderful, courteous, and kind. She suggested the bread pudding which everyone, except for Agent Tsai, ordered. I am not exaggerating when I say that this dessert was the best thing I’ve eaten in St. Louis, and possibly the best dessert I’ve ever had. It was warm, not too chewy, and the cream complimented the sweet vanilla bourbon sauce perfectly; the currants were an added bonus. It was a golden and glorious ending to our gastronomic adventure (that was only supposed to last a few hours by the way). Unfortunately, there are no photos of this wonderful dish, as we were all too cowed to whip out our cameras.

So thus ends my tale of April 24, 2010, despite its supreme ridiculousness, probably one of the best days of my freshman year. There’s something wonderfully relieving, de-stressing, and dare I say it, enjoyable about engaging in a good bout of insanity. (yeah, I just screwed up that parallelism. English teachers the world over just face-palmed) Many thanks to Colin for providing transportation and enabling the whole adventure, to Mar for letting me hijack this blog, and to Agent Tsai, for being a bulwark of stoicism in the midst of the storm. (aka silently panicking in the backseat. Well, to be fair, Mar was assisting, and Colin was “passive-aggressively” panicking, although I suppose he had a reason, being the driver and all.)

FUN FACT: This blog entry is longer than my last music history essay over 17th-century madrigals. Mar, this is how much I love you.

30 Hour Trip: Super Long Summary of a Super Short Trip

Please, ignore the frivolity of that. After I returned home from Denver, I realized that the entire trip from the time I left home on Saturday until I returned home on Sunday spanned the same amount of time as the return trip for Tehran. However, quickly exploring Boulder and Denver was much more fun, and a lot less tiring than traveling home was.

Also, this isn't all about food, so maybe it doesn't need saying, but I had fun over the weekend, which did involve two meals, so I suppose that justifies it.

From the Denver International Airport we drove to Boulder. Apparently it was the same distance as our hotel in Denver, just the other way. We drove near CU-Boulder because Mom couldn't remember where in Boulder she remembered the cute shops were. We drove through by the Greek homes, and since the weather was nice, it was a bit amusing people-watching from the car. I saw a large (maybe forty people?) group doing what appeared to be some sort of dance on one of the lawns. Once we parked we walked around the practically deserted campus, the streets with the bars and stopped for some banana fudge gelato at Glacier Ice Cream.

After looking around a record store, being offered some free chocolate cake where the air smelled sweetly of smoke, and Mom being sure that there was a downtown mall that she remembered from thirty years ago, we headed back to the car to look for the sign we'd seen earlier before we turned towards the campus. But on the way I had to stop into Stellar because it looked too cute. The tags on the clothes had the cutest descriptions, the dress I bought said "girl next door vintage lanz." How could you not be seduced by cute tags like that?


We found Pearl Street Mall, but at that point it was after six o'clock and most places had closed. Some were open, such as Lighthouse Bookstore which smelled too strongly of incense for me to even get past the doorway, Goldmine Vintage with its selection of new and old clothing including an adorable blue dress that I couldn't resist trying on and getting, a store with a Princess dress in the window that I don't know the name of, and Boulder Arts and Crafts Cooperative Gallery. It was light out when we went in and dark when we emerged from the gallery. We were getting hungry, and started looking for a place to eat. We first stopped at a place with an hour and a half wait, and then when Mom found a place with a fifteen minute wait she put her name down. I wanted to keep walking, and next door I found The Kitchen, which looked like the kind of place that I would have seeked out with weeks of planning. I walked in and they could seat the two of us at the community table. I had a hunch that I'd read about the place before, and after we'd sat down and I saw the chalkboards, I was fairly sure. It turned out that I've read two or three articles about the restaurant that I saw in the hallway leading to the bathroom.

We started with the spicy greens salad with a mild chevre and deliciously candied pecans; also, the calamari and sausage ragu with polenta which was tastier and more delicate than we'd imagined. I'm not even a big sausage fan and I liked it because it was more calamari. We were tempted by their pastas, but wanted to save room for dessert. After a long debate we chose to split the pan roasted steel head trout. It was served next to braised lentils with pancetta and a lemony sauce. The lentils weren't too heady for the fish either. (The other entree we'd been considering was the lamb shank with onions and polenta verde (there are greens pureed into it). For dessert we had the Pot au Chocolat which was amazingly decadent with cream. The only bad part was it was late when we got back to the hotel. But early starts on Sundays aren't usually an option anyways.

Sunday morning we drove over by Civic Center Park. It was pretty deserted and a bit scary at 8:30 in the morning. And nothing really opens before ten. But we took a stroll in the brisk weather around the area, walked over to 16th Street Mall where everything was closed, figured out where Bump & Grind was, and then entertained ourselves walking until 9:45. When we got back to Bump&Grind, a small cafe at 17th and Peninsula in Denver, there was a line of about twenty people. I freaked out a bit and got in line. I guess men in drag serving breakfast really was worth it and appealing. Breakfast was large and satisfying, with amusing names that I wish I could remember. Though I saw a bit more than I would have liked to of some of the waiters -er, waitresses.

We walked over to the Denver Art Museum and waited for it to open, and gazed up at the library. I could move to Denver - it has a gorgeous library that looks like a painting.

After the museum though, it was a quick stroll to 16th Street Mall which was bustling and not all that interesting, and then the airport. I guess 24 hours in the area really wasn't that long.

Places:
Glacier Homemade Ice Cream
1350 College Ave. and other locations
Boulder, CO
303-442-4400

Stellar Clothing Co.
1203 Thirteenth
Boulder, Co 80302
303-443-5190

Powell's Sweet Shoppe
Have a candy you haven't seen in years? They probably have it. We picked up a Hello Kitty marshmallow pop for my cousin here.
1200 Pearl Street
Boulder, CO
303-213-3060

Goldmine Vintage
Clothing
1123 Pearl Street
Boulder, CO
303-447-0065

The Kitchen
If your in Boulder, I'd stop here. It's open for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner and is simple and unpretentious.
1039 Pearl Street
Boulder, CO 80302
303-544-5973

Bump & Grind Cafe
I was only there for their brunch, served by waiter in drag, which is quite a popular event and on Saturdays and Sundays starting at 10. I'm not sure about the rest of the week. Sorry that I don't have a more precise address, but the place is hard to miss.
17th and Pennsylvania
Denver, CO

Denver Art Museum
Didn't have quite enough time to spend in it. But how can you not like a place with lots of art AND interactive stations where you can make your own postcard. Elsewhere I grabbed a card that said INSPIRED on one side and on the other was a quote from Ansel Adams in the 1930s.
"A strange thing happened to me today. I saw a big thundercloud move down over Half Dome, and it was so big and clear and brilliant that it made me see many things that were drifting around inside me."
www.denverartmuseum.com

Pralines from New Orleans

The first praline shop I went into was disappointing. I'd read about it in a guidebook and it sounded like the description of fudge shops I'd been to where you can see them making the candy. They had samples, and they were tasty, but everything was boxed up, and while I saw a window to a room, it didn't seem to be used. But it was 5:30 at night.
We walked another block, and I saw another candy store. It had all sorts of candies, including pralines. I bought a box of ten pralinettes there because they looked even better.

The following day, in between bouts of pouring rain, and sometimes even during, we darted between shops in the French Quarter I found the New Orleans School of Cooking which I'd read about because they do cooking demonstration/classes every day. It was almost noon though, and the classes were 10-12:30. One of the things they always make though is pralines. Mom bought a praline for us to split, and its ingredients were the friendliest out of all the pralines we'd had: sugar, pecans, brown sugar, vanilla, butter, milk

I'd found my praline. I also found the New Orleans School of Cooking Cookbook with easy recipes. I'm guessing the praline recipe they teach is the one they use.


New Orleans School of Cooking Pralines
adapted from New Orleans School of Cooking Cookbook

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
6 Tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups pecans
1/2 cup milk
1 Tablespoon vanilla

Mix together all ingredients in a heavy saucepan. Cook over figure out heat, stirring to keep bottom from scorching, until it registers as softball on a candy thermometer (238-240). Remove from heat and continue stirring until thick and cloudy. Spoon onto a buttered piece of parchment paper and let cool.

The Crescent City

I'm spending the weekend in New Orleans. It is my first time in New Orleans, and it has already been clear to me what the main thing to do is: eat.

And I'm sad to say, out of four meals so far, only one meal was truly something, two were okay, and then there was the one was with my mom that was part of her meeting, but that doesn't count.

Saturday Night, so far disappointed with New Orleans with the exception of going to Art for Art's Sake. Afterwards, we ate and walked down Bourbon Street. That is something I never want to do again. I'm not fond of drunk people with oversized beers, pounding music mixing together from all sides, and the strong scent of liquor mixed with vomit and urine. I find it disgusting-and not in an exhilarating way.

Sunday was much better. Despite twice getting caught in the on again/off again heavy rain in the morning. The first quick downpour led to my riding on a streetcar for the first time. As soon as it started moving, it stopped raining. No more than a minute we got off at the end of the line, halfway to our destination in the Garden District, it started pouring again. Mom thought we should hang out in the underpass until it stopped. The air was so damp that we gave up on having the umbrella dry even after the rain did stop.
The rest of our walk was pleasant. We saw pretty houses, and others that still needed to be repaired. There was a new looking AT&T store in front of a crumbling yellow house. That made some things clear.

When we arrived at Commander's Palace, mom was damp and excited to be inside; I, miraculously, was comfortable in the steamy weather. The recently redone hundred-year old restaurant was definitely worth the weather. We walked in, and a server led us through a line of servers that greeted us with warm smiles, through a dining room, up a flight of stairs, through another dining room, and into a smaller dining room with striped walls with matching curtains that blended right in. It seemed almost as if it should be tacky, but it wasn't in the least.

Our three-course jazz brunch was spectacular. Mom was worried when I said I wanted to go there for brunch and insisted we get a reservation that it was going to be all show and no taste. After she had a piece of garlic bread (made with real garlic and cheese) with her chicory coffee, she changed her mind. When she read over the menu, and our waiter said that the pecan-crusted gulf fish was drum, Mom insisted I try it. Drum is her new favorite fish. She had it a few nights ago for dinner, and was blown away. She was also thrown by the size of a soft-shell crab her friend had gotten, and decided to get soft-shell crab.

We started with salads, a romaine salad similar to a Ceasar, except with a buttermilk-black pepper dressing and toast points, and a Warm Rabbit and Apple Salad that had pears, apple, candied pecans, warm rabbit, and a sweet vinaigrette.
Our entrees were also wonderful: the pecan-crusted drum with lump crab and a corn bisque-like sauce converted me to a drum lover. Mom's scary large soft-shell crab with its crunchy fried exterior and melt in your mouth interior with a remoulade was delicious. And I never thought I really liked crab.

And the bread pudding souffle, the signature dessert, was that classic New Orleans bread pudding topped with a puffy meringue. Mom's praline sundae had a tasty cookie wrapped around it that I couldn't stop eating. Plus, I really like candied pecans. After our dessert came, the jazz trio came around to our table and asked what we would like to hear. Mom asked if they had anything original, and they just played covers, but they chose Down Yonder in New Orleans to play for us.

After breakfast- and yes, depite my long narration, that failed to mention the polka-dotted bathroom walls, there was more to our day than a delicious brunch - it was time to do some exploring.

It was raining again when we left the restaurant, so we took a cab to the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and spent a few hours looking around in there. There was an exhibit that was a guy who changed his name twelve times in a year, changing his persona and style each time, until his twelfth name, which is what he still goes by thirty years later with a style he still produces works of art with.

We walked back to our hotel from the museum on the same street we'd walked back on the night before. I got a picture of a Lutheran Church the night before, and it looked so different in the daylight. The street where the galleries were also looked less friendly.

After spending a while in our room (I was doing some homework, Mom read the paper), we decided to explore the French Quarter. We took the wrong street the first time, Dumaine, but walking back to the hotel, we found the street to see. Royal. It's chock full of galleries, restaraunts, and cute shops. Right off of Royal, on Toulouse, was a used cookbook and music store called Kitchen Witch. I was so glad that when I saw the sign that said "Cook books" I turned back around and headed towards it with Mom. We spent probably half an hour in it, and the owners were so friendly, as were Bob, the official greeter who happened to bea cat that reminded me of Jack, Sophie, a large black dog, and another dog whose name I don't remember.
I ended up buying a new book that's pretty recent called "Ruby Slippers" a cookbook with stories about Katrina that was put together by a twenty-nine year old woman. So far it is interesting to read.

We also saw a portion of Bourbon Street that was residential. Not quite the Bourbon Street thought of, but more pleasant.

Now that I've discovered Royal Street though, the French Quarter doesn't seem like such a bad place.