4-layer Chocolate Orange Cheesecake

Ingredients:

For the crust:
16 Oreo (or Neo) cookies --with chocolate filling if you can find them
2 TBS melted butter

For the fillings:
250g caster (fine) sugar
500g full-fat soft cream cheese
Grated rind of 1 orange
2 TBS Cointreau or Grand Marnier liqueur
4 medium to large eggs

150g dark (70%) chocolate, melted and cooled

For the top layer:
250g sour cream
2 TBS sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Chocolate sauce if desired:
100g dark chocolate, chopped
2 TBS heavy cream

How to make it:
Preheat oven to 170°C/Gas mark 3/325°F.

For crust: crush cookies in a Ziplock bag with a rolling pin, or in a food processor, until finely crumbed. Add the melted butter and mix through.
Press this onto the bottom of a 9-inch round springform baking pan.
Pre-bake crust on a preheated baking sheet for 10 minutes.
Combine sugar, cream cheese, and eggs; whip until well beaten.
Remove 1/3 of this filling and beat in the cooled chocolate (it will thicken).
Pour the chocolate layer over the baked crust, smoothing the surface.
Add rind and orange liqueur to the rest of the cream cheese filling.
Carefully pour this orange batter over the chocolate layer.
Bake for one hour or until set but center still jiggles slightly.
Remove from oven and evenly pour over sour-cream mixture.
Bake another 10 minutes or until set but not browned.

Immediately run a sharp knife around the edge of the cheesecake.
Cool in pan to room temperature; then wrap well in clingfilm and chill at least 4 hours or overnight before carefully removing from pan and serving. (It helps to use a very sharp knife dipped in hot water between slices.) Optional chocolate sauce is nice for a fancier dinner, otherwise it is wonderful without.

Chocolate sauce:
Melt chocolate together with cream slowly in a small, heavy saucepan until chocolate melts. Stir through and serve warm. Do not allow to boil.

Cheesy Fresh Corn Pudding

This is my personal twist on traditional creamed corn aka corn pudding. The cheese and onions add enough ballast and zip for this to count as a main course, though it makes a great side for grilled meats or baked ham, too.


Ingredients:
4 fresh ears of corn
175g (6oz) sharp Cheddar cheese, grated
3 spring or green onions, including green part, washed and chopped
Generous 1/2 cup cream or condensed (not sweetened!) milk
1 large egg, beaten
Pinch each fresh nutmeg, dry mustard, and red paprika
Salt to taste (not much, the cheese is salty)
A goodly amount of freshly-ground black pepper

How to make it: 
Preheat oven to 170°C/325°F.
Shuck the corn and, with a sharp knife, scrape all the kernels, including the milky white juice, into a deep bowl (this will keep it from spraying all over your kitchen).
Add to the corn the grated cheese and green onions, mixing well.
In a small bowl, beat together the cream, egg and seasonings until smooth.
Pour liquid over the corn mixture and mix well.
Pour into a medium-sized greased casserole and spread evenly.
Bake for 1/2 hour or until edges are browned and pudding jiggles only slightly in the middle.
Cool 5 minutes before serving. Can be eaten as a side dish (serves 4) or a vegetarian main course (serves 2).

Tangy Seafood Cocktail Sauce

This is the red and robust seafood sauce that was always served with a prawn cocktail when I was a child and young person in California. I was appalled when I later encountered the pink, boring, mayonnaise-based version of seafood sauce (often known as Marie Rose). Try this, and you'll never go back: it has a zippy flavor which for some reason does not overwhelm, but actually beautifully complements, the sweet succulence of really nice fresh, cooked and chilled, prawns (or vastly improves the smaller varieties of shrimp). Good with crab and lobster, too, but best with shrimps.


Ingredients:
1/2 cup ketchup-based chili sauce OR
1/2 cup good-quality ketchup + 1 TBS mild chili powder
1 TBS prepared horseradish
1 TBS fresh lemon juice
2 scant tsp. Worcestershire sauce (shake the bottle first!)
1/4 tsp. salt
Pinch of cayenne or dash of hot chili sauce

How to make it:
Whisk all ingredients together in a small non-metal bowl.
Cover with plastic wrap and chill at least 3 hours before serving.
Makes about 3/4 cup of sauce.

To make a classic prawn cocktail:
Use an urn-shaped ice-cream dish.
Fill this with the sauce and hang the cooked, cold prawns around the edges of it, tails dangling.
Garnish with a thin slice of lemon, twisted.

To make a great shrimp salad:
Combine cooked, drained shrimp of any size with just enough sauce to bind.
Serve well-chilled on salad leaves; garnish with lemon slice as above.

Creamy Stilton & Walnut Tartlets

I can't even tell you how good these are: flaky pastry, creamy filling with the blue-cheese bite of Stilton, crunchy toasted walnuts..  I made them as the appetizer course for our Christmas Eve dinner, but they are definitely good enough to be the main course next time! I heavily tweaked a recipe by Tesco to come up with these, based on what I had on hand. Simple yet superb.


Ingredients:
200g (7 oz.) cream cheese, softened
1 beaten egg
1 crushed garlic clove
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
Fresh grated nutmeg (or 1/8 tsp. ground)
1/4 cup freshly chopped fresh parsley (or 2 TBS freeze-dried)
1 package ready-made all-butter puff pastry
125g (4 oz.) crumbled aged Stilton (or other blue cheese)
25-30g (about 1 oz.) broken walnut pieces
Fresh rosemary to garnish

How to make it:
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F, less for fan-assisted ovens.
Beat the cream cheese together with the egg, garlic, S&P to taste, nutmeg to taste, and the parsley.
Roll out the pastry and, with a pizza cutter, cut into 6 even-sized rectangles. This should use up the dough; if not, keep scraps for whatever else you want to use them for.
About 1/2" from the edge of each rectangle, run a sharp knife along the pastry, not cutting all the way through, but scoring deeply enough that it will make a ridge when baked.
Place pastry rectangles on baking sheet and bake for just 8-10 minutes, or until it has risen but is only light golden in color.
Remove from oven and, with the back of a spoon, press the rectangle inside the scored area down.
Divide the filling evenly among the rectangles, spreading to fill the area inside the border.
Sprinkle each evenly with the Stilton and scatter the walnuts evenly on each tartlet.
Return to the oven and bake another 10-15 minutes, or until walnuts are toasted, cheese is melted and pastry is puffed and golden.
Place a rosemary twig on each tartlet while still hot, so the flavor is released.
Serve warm (not bubbling hot!) or at room temperature with a good wine.

Crockpot Sticky Toffee Pudding

Well, my husband being British to the core, Sticky Toffee Pudding is held very dear. I just recently got a 2.4l Crockpot (just the right size for 2-3) and can't wait to try out all the recipes I've been drooling over on Pinterest. This one caught my eye, so of course I had to make it!
The original recipe is found on http://www.plus2point4.co.uk, but she used margarine and egg substitute (I can't imagine why. If you are going to be eating something so decadent and sugary anyway, why fudge on the essentials?!). My version uses the real thing, and more spice than she calls for, since a genuine STP will be dense and spicy as well as sticky and sweet.
Judgement from The Expert: "Fantastic"! Cook adds: "...And much simpler in a Crockpot." So I suspect we will be adding this to our fallback recipes when in the mood for something over-the-top. Enjoy!

Ingredients for the pudding:
50g cold butter, diced (plus extra for greasing)
150g self-raising flour (or this amount of flour plus 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder)
1 tsp. mixed spice (cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg) or more, to taste
100g dark muscovado sugar
2 eggs
2 TBS milk
3 TBS golden syrup (or dark corn syrup)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 dessert apple, peeled, cored and finely chopped

For the toffee sauce:
125g muscovado sugar
25g butter

How to make it:
1. Using either a souffle dish or proper British pudding bowl, draw around the top and bottom onto grease-proof or parchment paper; cut circles out.
2. Butter the inside of a pudding bowl or soufflé dish small enough to fit inside the Crockpot.
3. Place the grease-proof paper circle from the bottom inside the greased container. Set the top circle of paper aside.
4. Sift the flour and mixed spice together into a large bowl and rub in the butter (or use a pastry cutter) until it resembles breadcrumbs.
5. Stir in the sugar, then mix in the eggs, milk, vanilla essence, golden syrup and milk until smooth. Stir in the apple bits.
6. Spoon the mixture into the pudding bowl or soufflè dish. Sprinkle the muscovado sugar evenly over it, and place blobs of butter on top.
7. Place the remaining circle of grease-proof paper firmly on top.  Cover entire top with aluminum foil, sealing well.
8. Place a pastry ring or upturned saucer in the slow cooker. Put the soufflé dish on top of this, and carefully fill the slow cooker with hot water half way up the sides of the container.
9. Cover, and cook on high for 3 – 3 1/2 hours.
10. Once the pudding has risen and the sauce is bubbling. remove from cooker. Carefully remove the foil and parchment paper, and invert pudding onto a plate at least 2 inches wider all around than the top of the container. Carefully remove the pudding bowl.
11. Serve your slow cooker sticky toffee apple pudding warm, in deep bowls with thick cream.

Apple-Nut Streusel Coffee Cake

This simple recipe is much tastier than its ingredient list might suggest: moist and perfectly balanced in sweetness and crunch. I have adapted it from a similar recipe on cooks.com, using a streusel I prefer, more cinnamon, fresh nutmeg and Demerara sugar in the dough. You could substitute any fresh, not-too-juicy fruit for the apples: pears, pitted cherries, etc. This lovely little cake will cut into 9 pieces but I can guarantee you everyone will want more than one.

Preheat oven to 350°F/175°C.

Peel, core and coarsely chop 1 large apple, set aside.

Grease a 9x9" cake pan.

Ingredients:
For the cake:
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder (Backpulver)
1/2 tsp. baking soda (Natron)
1/4 tsp. salt
generous 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. pre-ground nutmeg or several grinds fresh nutmeg
Stir together in medium bowl and set aside.

In a smaller bowl, whisk together:
1/2 cup sugar (I used Demerara)
1 egg
1/4 cup oil (not olive)
1/2 tsp. vanilla or 1/2 pkt Vanillezucker
1/2 cup sour cream

How to make it:
Add the wet to the dry mixture and stir just until combined.
Spoon into the pan, spread evenly and top evenly with the apples.

Crumble Streusel Topping over this mixture:

2 TBS butter, cut into small bits
2 TBS flour
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Pinch salt

Work all these ingredients together with your fingertips in a small bowl until it's crumbly.
Spread evenly over apples in pan and bake for 25-35 minutes, depending on your oven, or until cake is done and topping is lightly browned.
Best served warm or at room temperature, same day as baked.

Fettuccine with Shrimp and New Peas in White Wine Sauce

Simple, delicious and takes very little time. This recipe is rather heavily tweaked from one I found on Yahoo!Voices by Julie McMurchie. I simplified hers and changed some ingredients so I consider it "mine" now! I'll give you her options as well, but I found the end result as I made it to be well worth making again.


Ingredients:
    300-350g dried fettuccine (I used spinach fettuccine)
Sauce:
    2 TBS olive oil
    2 shallots, finely chopped
    1 cup dry white wine
    4 TBS cold butter in chunks
    1/2 Knorr or Maggi chicken soup cube
    4 tsp. fresh grated lemon peel
    Juice of two smallish lemons or 1 large juicy one
    Few grinds black pepper
    250 g raw shrimp or scampi
    200g fresh shelled peas
    2 TBS fresh dill, finely chopped or snipped

How to make it:
Put a large pot of salted water on to boil for the pasta. Whenever it boils as you are making the sauce, put in pasta, add 1 TBS olive oil, and reduce heat just enough so it doesn't boil over. Give it a stir now and then while working on the sauce.

Saute the shallots in the olive oil over medium heat until it becomes soft, but don't let it brown --about 2 minutes.
Add the white wine, raise the heat and bring to a boil. Boil for about five minutes, or until it is reduced by half.
Crumble in chicken broth cube and stir.
Remove pan from heat, turn heat down to medium. While pan is off heat, add cold butter and allow to start melting.
Return to heat and cook, stirring, over medium low heat until the butter completely melts and incorporates. Remove from heat.
Now whisk in the lemon peel, lemon juice and pepper to taste. Set aside and keep warm until ready to use.

By this time the pasta should be almost done. In the last 3 minutes of boiling the pasta, place a strainer over or partly into the boiling water; fill with fresh peas and shrimp and steam only until peas are a bright green, shrimp are pink and pasta is al dente.
Drain pasta, peas and shrimp; return to pasta pot, add the snipped fresh dill and pour sauce over all, stirring well to coat the strands.
Serve immediately.

Julie strains the shallots from the sauce, omits the pepper and chicken cube (making the recipe too bland, in my opinion) and uses parsley rather than dill. If making the sauce on its own without shrimp or peas, that may be okay, but otherwise I'd strongly suggest using either dill or fresh basil.

Julie also says: This white wine sauce can be used as the basis for shrimp scampi. Make the sauce in a saute pan. Add the shrimp and cook until they are pink and opaque. Remove the scampi to a serving plate and pour the remaining white wine sauce over the top. (In this case by all means use parsley. I can really see this sauce working well simply poured over broiled or grilled scampi!)