Easy Roasted Pumpkin Cheesecake with Peanut Butter Oreo Crust Recipe

Halloween is coming and I feel obligated to do something pumpkin to compensate the lack of slutty costume planning. So this is what I did.

You know my baking is the exact opposite of refined. No cute decoration, it's not a super smooth cheesecake, not done in a proper cake mold. It's pretty rough around the edges with bits of roasted pumpkin in it...or maybe I should call it "rustic".

And don't ask me what's with the peanut butter. Why did I think that peanut butter plus roasted pumpkin plus oreo would be a good idea? I don't know. But, luckily, the end result was pretty damn delish. Phew!

Recipe
- 1 block of cream cheese
- a quarter of a small (around 15cm diameter) pumpkin, remove seeds, remove skin
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 3 tbsp cream
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp corn starch
- 1 whole packet of oreo
- 2 heaping tbsp peanut butter
- 1 tbsp butter

Preheat oven to 180C, roast pumpkin until soft. Meanwhile, prepare crust. In a food processor, pulse oreos + peanut butter + butter until smooth. Pour into lightly greased pan. Set aside.

Once soft, remove roasted pumpkin, set aside to cool down, cut into chunks. Cut cream cheese into chunks, throw it into food processor, add the rest of the ingredients, pulse until everything's combined. Don't worry about little bits of pumpkin. Pour batter onto the crust, bake in 150C oven for about 20 minutes. Cool down and refrigerate.

Or spoon the custardy warm batter fresh out of the oven with a spoon, and ofcourse, lick the spoon clean.
Yum!

Now tell me more about your slutty Halloween costume...

Baked Cheesy Pumpkin, Chicken, Mussels & Rice with Bacon Bits

This is why I like dumping stuff into my oven.

Uh huh!

It all started with one leftover small Japanese pumpkin.
It'd be lonely in the oven, so I added a chicken leg fillet I had in my fridge.
Then I saw a pack of mussels, already defrosted.
Ah, join the fun please...
...and why stop there?
Some bits of bacon won't hurt, right?

Recipe
- 1 small Japanese pumpkin, peeled, cut into similarly sized chunks
- 2 Chicken leg fillet with skin cut into 2 or 4 chunks (too bad I only had one, it wasn't enough)
- Some mussels (if you have fresh, still in shell, nice...but you gotta clean them. Mine aren't as nice but they were already clean, ready for dumping)
- 3 slices of bacon, cut into bits
- 4 cloves of garlic, crushed, don't need to peel
- 4 shallot, peeled, cut into chunks
- Butter, olive oil, salt, pepper, sugar, rosemary
- Cooked rice
- Cheeses (I used grated mozzarella and parmesan)

Preheat oven to 250C while preparing ingredients. Place pumpkin chunks, chicken (skin side up), garlic, onion, and bacon bits in a baking dish. Add olive oil, dots of butter, salt, pepper and sugar (season generously), mix well with your hands until everything's coated with some oil and butter, and seasoned well. Bake until chicken skin's golden and pumpkin chunks are tender. Add mussels about 5 minutes before done.

This could already be a delicious dinner, but if you're mad like me (or you have some spare cheese to melt...), you can go further...

Butter a baking dish, or small pretty "le creuset inspired, made in China" individual baking dishes like me, add cooked rice, add various bits of the baked dish, top with cheese and bake until the cheeses melt and golden.


Uh huh! Uh huh!

Ahem, sorry for being pushy, obnoxious and shameless...but...
Remember my adorable son (as his mom, I am highly biased, but I think he is pretty cute)?

He still needs more vote for Huggies HK photo contest.
If you haven't voted but you want to, here are the links:
1. Like this page: http://www.facebook.com/HuggiesHK
2. Like his picture here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=179319918779117&set=a.179319748779134.44752.175747015803074&theater

Thanks so so so so so muchhhh for your support and have a yummy weekend!

Beef & Pumpkin Soupy Stew

I need to learn how to recognise more Chinese characters!
All I can read recognize guess are Chinese characters of food that I hate (including papaya) or absolutely love (various meat, dishes, including char siew ^_^)

Why the sudden dedication to learn more Chinese characters?

I went to the supermarket and grabbed a pack of beef for stir frying. The meat was beautifully marbled, fresh and all...it costs quite a lot. I took it anyway. A few steps later, I saw a pack that's a lot cheaper. The meat looked fresh and marbled...and in such a package, I couldn't recognize which part of beef the meat was based on sight. Anyway, I bought it and planned to do a simple stir fry.

I went home and happily started prepping my cheap beef.
It looked suspicious, not the kind of beef I normally use for stir fry, there were lots of fatty chunks and tendons, which I tried to get rid of. I had difficulties slicing the beef, but tried my best anyway.

Luckily, SC's mom came over and saw my struggle. She checked the package and turned out...I've bought a bad pack of beef brisket. What an idiot (me)! Stir frying it would be a disaster. We would end up chewing on something as rubbery as the soles of raggedy old boots! So I changed my plan and did an easy stew.

Recipe
- 1 lb of beef brisket (get a better one than mine, know your cuts of meat, or read labels ^_^')

- half a small pumpkin, peeled, seeds removed, cut into large chunks
- 1 clove of garlic, crushed
- 2 clove shallot, cut into a few chunks
- 1 cm ginger, crushed
- cooking oil, hot water, salt, pepper, ground nutmeg

Saute garlic and shallot in a bit of oil, add beef brisket, add hot water (a little of a lot, depending how much "soup" you want from the stew, I like this version more soupy, just like Indonesian sop or soto), bring to boil and simmer until tender (I pressure cooked it for 25 minutes). Once the beef chunks are tender, add pumpkin chunks, cook until the pumpkin chunks are tender, or until completely dissolved in hot water, it's up to you. Season with salt, pepper and ground nutmeg.

I couldn't believe how delightfully savory it was! I'll be looking for more el-cheapo beef brisket on sale to make more soupy stew next time.

PS. I've learnt how to recognize "beef brisket" in Chinese. Heheheh

Creamy Spiced Pumpkin & Banana Dessert

It's almost Halloween, and I'm obligated to put up something cheesy and clichéd, such as...a pumpkin post.

Plus, I received half a small pumpkin from SC's mom, and I didn't feel like stir frying it as much as she'd like me to...so I whipped up this weird version of Indonesian kolak.

Weird? Why?
It does have coconut milk in it, but instead of palm sugar, I used normal caster sugar, and instead of pandan leaves for fragrance, I used nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves.

Weird it is.

Recipe
- half a small pumpkin, cut into bite size chunks
- one large (super duper ripe, the skin should be all black) emperor banana, cut into a few sections
- 200 ml coconut milk
- hot water, a pinch of salt, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves

Cook pumpkin chunks in hot water, some sugar (adjust the amount of sugar to suit your taste) and spices until tender, add coconut milk, a pinch of salt, adjust the amount of sugar and spices in necessary, add banana chunks, consume hot or cold.

...preferably in a slutty (or not ^_*) Halloween outfit.

Pumpkin, Carrot & Corn Chinese Soup in a Pack

One of the beauties of living in Hong Kong....apart from...
- HK$10 wonton noodle
- Coffee shop whole day breakfasts
- In some places, food being smashed on your table delivered to you within seconds after you uttered your orders
- HK$18 BBQ pork lunch boxes
...is Chinese Soup in A Pack

The locals drink their Chinese soup religiously.
Each soup has its own health benefits such as...as quoted the locals:
- good for skin
- good for the heart
- good for heat
- good for cold
- good for health
good good good...I wonder if they have some soups that's good for love/good for career/good for the economy?

My knowledge about Chinese soup is...nonexistent.
I don't know which ingredient goes with what, and I don't know which soup is good for what.
I might have been drinking soup which is "good for gentlemen"...since I seem to have grown quite a lot of moustache these days. Oppps. (No, Rita. Don't blame it on the soup. You've had moustache since...like..forever)

Anyway, based on my Chinese soup related cluelessness, soup in a pack is my best bet.

Last weekend I've chosen...
Pumpkin, Carrot and Corn Soup Pack

It's a Chinese soup combo that I haven't seen before, and despite the persistent scorching heat, autumn is coming, so something with pumpkin sounds perfect.

I just grabbed a pack, it costs HK$18.50 (around USD2.3), it has all the necessary ingredients for the soup. I've added another pack of pork tenderloin too.


...and it doesn't get easier than this.
Simply dump everything into a pot (an impatient bitch that I am, I used a pressure cooker ^_^), add boiling water, bring to boil and simmer for about 1 hour.

Since I use a pressure cooker, I could've been drinking a bowl of soup after just 15 minutes.
But I want everything richer, sweeter, thicker, and tender, so I cooked my soup for 25 minutes. For pressure cooking vegetables, that's like...forever!

See my darling cooker blowing off steams?

That promises deliciousness.

...wow!
The soup is naturally sweet from all the sweet ingredients with a touch of meatiness from the pork tenderloin, I simply added a bit of salt to make everything perfectly balanced.


Yum!...and the meat? Melt-in-your-mouth tender.

Now back to the most important issue again. Does anyone know any soup that can make me richer, slimmer, prettier, and also smarter?
(Note to self: Chinese soups can only do so much, not the impossible)

Savoury Pumpkin, Cream Cheese and Bacon Baked Goods - which Pissed Sous Chef Off

Guess what? I am not done with pumpkin yet. Especially since I still have a quarter of mini pumpkin in the fridge which was threatening to go rotten on me.

So I went ahead and pissed sous chef by baking these savoury goodies.

Wait...how did that happen?
It was all because I prioritized baking these goodies in lieu of cooking a pot of rice for dinner.
Oppps, my bad.

Hong Kongers love their bowls of hot and steamy rice...even if they had to eat it with just a few drops of soy sauce, it beats any baked goods I could ever muster. No matter how good and tasty the baked goods were, in sous chef's mind, they will never replace the goodness of that bowl of rice. The absence of rice, made the day so wrong on so many levels for sous chef.

So, imagine hungry sous chef's facial expression of disappointment, frustration and despair upon coming home to face an empty rice cooker. Trust me, it was heart breaking.

I kinda felt bad for the...
Savoury Pumpkin, Cream Cheese and Bacon Baked Goods

...cos they really taste fun-bloody-tastic.
I mean...come on! Look at that pile of rich tasting cream cheese, greasy and crispy bacon, plus fragrant and creamy pumpkin...how could they ever go wrong?

Even the batter looked that good!

Recipe
(yields 8 baked goods)
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup oatmeal
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 4 tbsp sugar
- 1 cup mashed pumpkin (chop pumpkin into small cubes, add 2 tbsp of milk, microwave on high for about 8 minutes and mash with a fork)
- a few strips of bacon (chopped and pan fried until slightly browned, keep the oil)
- 1 egg
- 3/4 cup of milk
- 1/2 stick of cream cheese (cut into cubes)
- 1/2 cup of olive oil
- a few sprinkles of mixed italian herbs (rosemary, oregano and thyme)

Preheat oven to 180C. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl, make a well in the middle, add wet ingredients, add pureed pumpkin, add bacon including the oil, set some aside for topping. To ensure even distribution of cream cheese goodness, it is better to add the cream cheese cubes into each cup of batter. Pour a couple tablespoons of batter into muffin tray lined with paper cups or greased ramekins, add cream cheese cubes, top off with more batter, add bacon topping and cream cheese (you could never have enough cream cheese), bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

As expected, sous chef didn't stay pissed for too long...or he might have to live on only bowls of white rice and soy sauce for a longgg longgg time. ^_*

Moist and Rich Pumpkin and White Chocolate Cake - A Chocolate Racist No More

Are you a chocolate person? Hang on a sec! What kind of question is this???!!! Who isn't?

Hmm, actually there are so many non-chocolate people here in Hong Kong. They are the kind of people who would prefer fruity or Chinese sweets than chocolate. But I am not one of them. I don't only love my chocolates so much, errr too much, I went ballistic when they announced that many chocolate products might've been tainted by melamine from Chinese milk products. The idea of having to stop eating chocolate....Arrrgghhh!!!! NOOO!!!!


Living in a world of choices, preference, favoritism and subjectivity, I am guilty of not treating all chocolates equally. Frankly, until recently, I think I have been a chocolate racist. I love, adore and respect only dark chocolate, and like a faithful lover, I don't look at any other chocolates...to me, other chocolates do not exist. Until yesterday, I've overlooked and ignored white chocolates completely for far too long.


It all began when I was thinking of something which could complement pumpkin nicely. My favorite dark chocolate would've killed the beautiful scent and flavor or pumpkin....so I chose a couple of good bars of whiteys, and as I expected, they are perfect for each other, it was like a match made in heaven. The richness of cocoa butter from the white chocolates gave it an extra kick, without killing the flavor or the pumpkin and the spices.

Moist and Rich Pumpkin and White Chocolate Cake

Recipe
- 1/2 cup of mashed pumpkin (I used a quarter of mini pumpkin, removed the seeds, peeled off the skin, chopped it into about 1x1 cm cubes, add a dash of milk, and microwaved it on high for 7 minutes, then mashed them with a fork)
- 1/4 cup oil
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/8 tsp salt
- a dash of nutmeg and cinnamon (you can adjust according to your taste. I love them, so I used loads)
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup flour
- 100 gr white chocolate (chopped into small cubes, or you can use white chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 180C. Mix all ingredients except flour and beat until well blended. Add flour, mix well, fold in white chocolate cubes/chips, bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Submitting this recipe to Wandering Chopsticks' Weekend Wokking, Pumpkin, hosted by Ning of Heart and Hearth.

This is now an equal opportunity kitchen. Chocolates of all colors and shapes are welcome. ^_^

Creamy Coconut Milk, Tuna & Pumpkin Farfalle - My Magic Ingredient Story

I am sure everybody has their own magic ingredient/s. I just realised last night that mine's gotta be the creamy, rich, exotic and super fragrant coconut milk. It gives my dishes the extra oooompphh!
Just like my favorite little gold necklace (I'll add the picture), which perfects my outfit every time, this magic ingredient makes everything suddenly taste...exotic yet familiar, rich yet subtle, simply out-of-this-world magical!

Am I hard-selling this ingredient too much? Will this qualify me as a coconut milk sales lady? (or do they call it "sales associate" these days?) hehehe

Growing up in Indonesia, I've seen our family's helper, Mbok Yem making coconut milk all the time. While boxed/canned coconut milk/cream is easily available in Hong Kong and I bet anywhere in the world, it is no match to the coconut milk resulted from the freshly grated and squeezed home-made coconut milk. My busy lifestyle (i.e. my lazy ass) does not really give me the luxury of time to try making my own coconut milk, so I had to settle with the boxed ones, but you can try to make your own coconut milk this way.

I wanted to make a creamy tuna and pumpkin pasta last night (as I have a spare can of tuna in spring water ^_^), I was contemplating to use milk, cream or coconut milk...and decided to go with coconut milk. It made it perfect! The oceanic scent of tuna, the sweet and earthy tone of pumpkin, and the magic touch of coconut milk...stop it!

(I don't wanna be a pushy sales associate! I just can't be that person I've been trying to dodge throughout the mall all the time! LOL)

Recipe
- 1 can of tuna in spring water
- 1/4-1/2 small pumpkin (the pumpkin diameter is approx 15 cm), peeled, thinly sliced, softened in microwave for 10 minutes with a bit of water
- 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 5 cloves of shallot, thinly sliced
- 1 cm ginger, peeled & crushed
- 1/2 packet of farfalle
- 1 small box/can of coconut milk
- olive oil, salt, pepper, sugar

Saute garlic, ginger and shallot, add pumpkin pieces, add tuna pieces with the water, bring to boil, add coconut milk, add seasoning, lower heat. Prepare pasta according to the instructions on the packaging, drain, pour on the sauce mix, stir, heat through, sprinkle fresh chopped corriander/parsley flakes to garnish, serve hot.

Harry Potter and your magic wand, take that!

Sharing this with Presto Pasta Night's Gang!

Just after saying I don't wanna be a pushy salesman, here I go again:
Few more days to go, release the little Chinese in you, see you at the Chinese Take-Out Party Round Up!

no more selling, I promise...for now, hehe