Bacon and non-caramelised onion quiche!

The recipe is based on something out of the book "Bake: Essential Companion", a present from The Hubby, and a subtle reminder that women should stay in the kitchen, where they belong (thanks, babe!). No, I actually love recipe book gifts- please don't stop giving them to me...

The original recipe was (obviously) caramelised onion quiche, but no matter how hard I try, I can never get the dayum onions to caramelise. Perhaps they were caramelised and I just didn't know it. Perhaps they've been trying to tell me they've been caramelised for a long time and I just wasn't able to see it in them. Don't judge onions.

But I don't THINK they were caramelised.

So... The recipe!

Ingredients
Frozen short-crust pastry (enough to cover your quiche pan- I used a spring-form cake tin)
3 tbsp. olive oil
60g butter
600g onions, grated (you'll want to wear sunnies while you do this)
salt
pepper
150g bacon
150g mature cheddar cheese (or extra tasty)
250ml milk
250m pouring cream
4 eggs

Instructions

1. Line your baking pan/cake tin with short-crust pastry. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

2. Heat olive oil and butter in large saucepan and add the onions, salt and pepper. Cover and cook over a medium heat for 20 minutes, stirring regularly. Remove the lid and continue to cook for 20-30 minutes. This is the stage when the onions are supposed to become caramelised and become sweet and brown in colour. This has never happened to my onions yet, so I cook them for the time the recipe says, a bit longer even, until I get frustrated, and decided that cooked, non-caramelised onions are probably just as good. After you have gone through the same process, take the onions off the heat and set aside to cool!

3. Preheat your oven to 160C.

4. Spread the cooled onions over your chilled pastry base. Add bacon, and sprinkle the grated cheese on top of this.

5. In a bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, cream and 1tsp salt with pepper to taste. Pour this mixture over the bacon, onions and cheese.

6. Bake the quiche until golden brown, and filling is set (approximately 45 minutes).

This is one life decision you will not regret!

A day of many disasters... delicious, delicious, disasters...

Today me and Jason spent some time together doing one of my favourite things- cooking.

Jason's project was an amazing, rich lasagne (the best I have ever eaten), while mine was "Eskimo Bars".

For those of you not yet acquainted with eskimo bars, I saw them on this super duper food blog- 
 Mel's Kitchen Café.



Here's the original recipe on the original blog. Please check these out, they look so good, and so much better than my photos...

http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2013/04/outrageous-eskimo-bars.html

Mel's beautiful version. So perfect.

So, Mel had an actual recipe and stuff like that... Real adult-type stuff... But that's just not me.

So I read through her recipe carefully, and then did not follow it at all.

Here's my version!

Not so pretty... But perhaps equally delicious (we can only hope).

Ingredients:
*Ice Magic
*The cheapest vanilla icecream in the store. After you buy it, don't put it in the freezer. This means it will be nice and spreadable when you use it.
*The cheapest brownie mix in the store with accompanying ingredients. I went with Duncan Hines because not only were they on special, they also have the option for chewy brownies versus cakey brownies (who doesn't prefer chewy. Honestly...)
*Caramel sauce (optional)

Directions:

1. Make the brownie! Have your husband break at least 2 eggs in the process (mine broke eight. EIGHT!!!)  It adds to the bonding time. Special moments are important.

2. Bake the brownie until almost fully cooked. It's always best a bit undercooked in my opinion, so the centre squares are more fudgey. Cool the brownies in the freezer for at least half an hour.

3. Take your cheap ice-cream, which by now should be nice and soft. Mine was not, unfortunately. When I tried to pour the ice-cream onto the brownie, a huge square of not-yet-fully melted ice-cream plonked onto the brownie. It did not spread well. It made a mess everywhere, including the floor, the bench, and my upper torso. The lesson we learnt is to be patient! Wait until the ice-cream is almost fully liquid and then pour it onto the brownie layer. Put the brownie ice-cream slice into the freezer again and allow to fully set.

4. Once it is set, this is the most tricky part. Pry the brownie ice-cream slice out of the tin, and cut it into slices, being careful to not disfigure the ice-cream with your freakishly warm hands (I was not successful in this).

5. Once you have cute little slices, or ugly chunks, dip the slices into a bowl of ice magic to fully coat. If this doesn't work, and your ice-cream feels like it wants to come off of your brownie layer every time you hold it upright, you can pour the ice magic over your bars.

6. Drizzle some warm caramel sauce over your eskimo bars, and eat with a fork (because there's just no easy way to eat this with your hands like in Mel's kitchen. Even with a fork, I ended up with sauce and ice magic everywhere).

 

Despite all of the misgivings I had with this recipe (not faults with the recipe itself, but rather the carrying out of the recipe by me) it was super delicious.

The brownie was thick, moist, and oh-so-fudgey, the ice-cream did not re-freeze icey, but maintained its creaminess, and the portion size was perfect. Definitely the best ice-cream cake bar thing (?) I have ever had. Well worth making.



FIN

Timtam cheesecake :)

Ok, so maybe I forgot about this blog... maybe I'm just lazy... Who knows? Who knows anything these days?! I certainly don't.

But what I DO know, without a doubt in my mind, is the absolute deliciousness of Timtams.

That's right, Timtams. The best biscuit made by man. Disagree? Let me know, we'll fight it out.

Combining my love of Timtams and my hubby's love of cheesecake, I whipped up this amazing, creamy, to-die-for Timtam cheesecake adapted from a recipe in a Taste magazine.

It's un-baked of course, because all the best cheesecakes are. And as if we need one more step between making the cheesecake and eating the cheesecake... Really.

THE RECIPE (kind of)

Ingredients:
1 packet of Timtams (I used double coated, because they're the best, but hey, each to their own)
300 g buttersnap biscuits
80g butter
1/4 cup boiling water
3 tsp gelatine
373g cream cheese
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup thickened cream
180 g white chocolate, melted in the microwave and left to cool


Instructions:

1. Blend your biscuits in a food processor. I don't own one, so I banged them with a meat mallet until they were satisfactorily crushed (read: until I became very bored of crushing biscuits and simply decided they were small enough pieces).

2. Pour delicious melted butter into the biscuits (preferably in a bowl) and mix together. Use this to press into the base of your cake tin or tray if you prefer. You should end up with a nice flat base (unless you give up crushing your bikkies like me. Then you will end up with a lumpy, uneven base. But you know what, sometimes life is lumpy and uneven!). Refrigerate your base, regardless of its looks.

3. While your base is chilling (like a villain), place your boiling water in a little bowl, and sprinkle over your gelatine, whisking gently with a fork until the gelatine has dissolved. If some of it clumps together, don't worry, you probably don't need all that gelatine anyway. Try and get the lumps out, but if that doesn't work, simply scoop the (hopefully) small lumps down the drain. That's what I did and my cheesecake still worked fine. Nigella Lawson I am not. Set your little water gelatine bowl aside to cool. Do not dip fingers in to see if it is cool. It most likely is not.

4. Beat your cream cheese, sugar and vanilla together in a large bowl, until light and fluffy. Add the cream and combine. Slowly add in cooled gelatine and white chocolate. Fold in chopped up Timtams, leaving a bit aside for garnish.

5. Scoop your yummy cheesecake batter into your cooled biscuit base, and chill over night. Don't forget to eat a little of the batter to test for poisoning. Top the cheesecake with extra chopped Timtams.