Savoury Cheesecake - Home Sweet Home Bake Along (41/100)

I was pleasantly surprised by this one - you see I am not a big fan of quiche, and was very concerned this would be too much like quiche.

It is pleasingly not - instead it is as it describes - a savoury cheesecake - with the tang and texture of a cheesecake, but with saltiness not sweetness.

I made a few modifications to this one - I only made half of the recipe, because I had no requirement for a 25cm diameter savoury cheesecake.

I substituted the fine beans and runner beans for mushrooms cooked with spring onions until they were no longer wet.

This would be an excellent dish for a bring and share lunch/pot-luck or for a picnic, I think.

Ingredients:
(I made half of this)
For the base:
125g unsweetened wheat or bran biscuits or crackers
50g mixed seeds (sunflower and sesame)
50g unsalted butter, melted
For the cheesecake topping:
250g full fat cream cheese
300g soured cream
4 large eggs
140g mature cheddar cheese, grated
10g fresh basil, roughly chopped
200g peas
200g fine beans
200g runner beans
salt and black pepper

Next up: Custard Cream Cupcakes

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I am entering this in #CookBlogShare, which this week is being hosted by Kerry Cooks

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Roasted Aubergines with Pesto, Tomatoes and Cheese

I have a love-hate relationship with summer gluts - on the one hand, HOMEGROWN PRODUCE, on the other hand - so-many-courgettes-aubergines-tomatoes-aaaaaaargh.

There are only so many ratatouilles anyone can tolerate in a single season. Of course, there was the year I put courgettes into every possible kind of cake, including chocolate.

This dish makes for a rather tasty summer lunch, served on its own, or could bulk up a dinner, if served with cous-cous or flatbread, and maybe a couple of lamb kebabs.

Ingredients: (per person)
1 medium, or 2 dwarf, aubergines
2 to 4 cherry tomatoes
4 tsp pesto
2 tsp olive oil
pinch of salt
20g cheese (I used mature cheddar, but parmesan, gruyere or even mozzarella would all work)
basil leaves to garnish.

1. Preheat the oven to 200C Cut the aubergine in half lengthwise - don't bother removing the green hat.
2. Criss-cross the white aubergine flesh, taking care not to cut through the purple skin.
3. Mix the pesto, olive oil and salt together, then spread the mixture equally over the cut surface of each of the aubergine halves
4. Put the aubergine halves into a roasting tin, and roast for around 20 minutes, until the flesh is soft (the pesto will darken in colour)
5. Thinly slice the tomatoes, and grate or slice the cheese.
6. Top each aubergine with slices of tomato and a sprinkling of cheese.
7. Return to the oven for another 5 to 10 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling and golden (mine never reached this stage due to an inconvenient power cut.)
8. Garnish with basil leaves and serve.

I'm entering this in #CookBlogShare, which I am hosting this week!

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Olive Loaf - Home Sweet Home Bake Along (27/100)

And we're back. New house, new kitchen, new oven. The oven slightly shocked me - it has no fan! I didn't even know modern ovens came without fans. One day, once I'm over the shock of filling a house with furniture &c. I may consider replacing it - check back in 20 years or so. Anyway, on with the bake through!

I love the idea of olive loaves. Indeed I love olive loaves themselves. But there is a caveat - I prefer them as yeasted loaves. Although I didn't have an issue with dryness that Gill had, I was slightly unconvinced by this texture.

Imagine if you will, a cross between an olive flavoured cake and a scone. The texture was very much scone/cake, but the flavour totally savoury. Odd.

However, The Fair Physiologist and I very much enjoyed it for our lunch in the glorious summer weather we had this week.We followed this excitement by going out to buy a watering can for my new garden. It was all go round here.

I'm playing catch up at the moment, so look out for a deluge of posts over the next hours/days. Gill suggested I might just skip over the ones I am behind. My dear reader, you will be pleased that I reacted in shock and amazement that I might not get to bake Mocha Marshmallow Cake.

Ingredients:
Loaf:

600g Strong flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/8 tsp crushed garlic
1 tsp maldon sea salt
1 tbsp finely chopped rosemary
2 large eggs
125ml olive oil
250ml whole milk
1 tbsp honey (I think I would reduce this next time, it gave a disconcerting sweetness)
200g pitted black olives, roughly chopped (I used tinned olives, and slightly less than this, as I failed to remember that the weight of tinned olives is the undrained weight, when doing my shopping online)
2 tbsp black olive tapenade (I used "olive pate" as this was all I could find when shopping and seemed close enough)

Top:
1/2 tsp sea salt
3-4 fresh rosemary springs (Their sprigs must be tiny - I picked 4 for the entire loaf, including the chopped rosemary, and still had 2 left over by the time I had thoroughly decorated)





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I'm entering this in #CookBlogShare