Dinner friends

As my friend Liz would say "It's nice being a grown up" Or something to that effect.
I do enjoy having friends over to hosting a tasty meal for them or going to their place and such. Good times, very grown up.
In the recent weeks I decided to practise my piping skills and make a lemon meringue pie. This was the second time that I had made it before, the first being at TAFE. I used the Women's Weekly recipe but used a different method for cooking the meringue.

Well I didnt end up piping the meringue as I couldn't be bothered after a whole day of baking (other goods as well) and having a cold. As I was sick I couldn't taste it but I was told that it tasted good (don't worry I was as hygienic as possible). I was told that it was even better than John's mum's! Woah big call there. Well I'm glad it was enjoyed, and I got to practice other skills.

Something else I made recently was a cappuccino brownie, very rich and tasty. Very basic concept, add coffee to the brownie recipe and serve with a scoop of ice-cream on top. Delish!

Ricotta Pancakes

I had a hankering for pancakes yesterday and remembered that I had leftover ricotta from the previous cheesecake baking. I had heard of ricotta pancakes before and after a brief browse through my cook books didn't find a recipe, and so progressed to make it up (as I do) based on a standard basic pancake recipe.
Whilst making it I was unsure how it would turn out as the batter had a gooey consistency similar to raw egg white. But I was pleasantly surprised, it turned out great! The pancake was so soft and light! They amused me greatly when I flipped them over, they instantly rose up like pumped up air mattresses. I felt compelled to do the dance from the anime 'My Neighbour Totoro" when they stretch their arms up and down to make the plants instantly grow.
Whilst observing how the batter held its shape, I realised this would work well if you wanted to do heart shaped pancakes (which is good timing if you're compelled to follow the heavily commercialised promotion of Valentines Day - which is next week). Otherwise you can give them to a loved one - just because you want to :o)

If you're interested, here's the recipe:
2 1/2 cup self raising flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp cinnamon (optional)
100g butter / table spread
250g ricotta (I used reduced fat but you don't have to)
4 eggs
1 cup milk (I used reduced fat but you don't have to)
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Mix together flour, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl
2. In a seperate bowl, melt butter in microwave. Mix in ricotta and eggs. Then mix in milk and vanilla
3. Add wet ingredients to the dry mixture. Stir.
4. Place spoonfuls of batter into a heated greased frypan, lightly spread to form a thick even surface
5. Depending on how hot your frypan is, after approximately 30 seconds flip the pancakes over. Note: there's no need to wait for air bubbles to surface on the other side; also the pancakes are quite soft so flip firmly.
6. Serve with sliced fresh fruit and honey. Enjoy

Pear & Ginger Cheesecake

I always have trouble trying to decide what to make, luckily other people know what they like and gladly assist in this area. With two requests for cheesecake, cheesecake it was!
Thought I'd try something different and went with a Pear and Ginger Cheesecake.

The pear slices are hiding underneath the filling. I forgot to bring extra pears to decorate the cheesecake with and so after a rummage Irene found some bananas,  not that ideal but I had to pretty it up somehow.
The ginger was quite strong with a lingering aftertaste as I used Gingernut biscuits as well as ground ginger for the base. Mm punchy.
As usual I didn't follow the recipe and made a few adjustments of my own. As good and tasty as I had seen Suze's cheesecake to be, I just couldn't stomach the thought of ladening everyone's guts with too much fat. Hehe, so I replaced half the cream cheese with ricotta and used light rather than full fat sour cream. Not bad, the creamy texture was still there. The family seemed happy with the eating, I was happy with the knowledge :)

The challenge is set

I have set myself a challenge! At every opportunity that I can, I am aiming to make some form of food (usually dessert) and so far this has progressed ok.
It began with a bit of a sponge theme, with Peach Swiss Roll for dessert with Lou, Daniel and Alicia

Followed by Trifle for Australia Day lunch
It was my first time making trifle and people seemed to enjoy it. I think personally I'm not a fan of the moosh. Funny, people generally don;t like soggy Weetbix but they don't mind soggy cake... To practise sponge making I even made the cake from scratch and kinda cheated by using a swiss roll recipe. Worked ok.

We were going to head to Australia Day dinner as well so I made a simple sponge cake, I even brought round my icing sugar and sieve so I could decorate it at the last minute! But we didn't end up going so I didn't bother icing, hence no pic.

Btw, I'm now officially enrolled into TAFE, so hoorah I'm really heading into things now. Excitement plus.