Cooking+ *mini* rant: Cheesefake Lemon/chocolate tarts

So, recently I watched a cute recipe on Gen's Guiltless Gourmet. It's called a "Margarita Yogurt Cheesecake"

But, I'd rather call it a cheesefake because it's actually made of yogurt, instead of cream cheese. It's actually really low fat and low in sugar! <3 YAY. I modified it a little, but visit the site (click on the marg cheesecake) and show some love! I kinda have a rant.. but I left it for the end. The top in the picture is chocolate

Makes 5 tarts. 
Ingredients for the filling: 

• Plain, vanilla yogurt: 16 oz or two cups. 
• half a lemon
• like a spoonful of zest
• half a lime
• half an orange
• coffee filters (8) 
• wire mesh strainer and large bowl for draining. 
• half cup of sugar

First, mix yogurt, juices of the citrus fruits, zest, sugar. Then, put 4 coffee filters into the mesh strainer and then into the large bowl. Pour all the yogurt into the coffee filters. No worries! 16 oz of yogurt JUST fits into the coffee filters. Cover with some plastic wrap or a plate and put it in the fridge. 


You have to pour off the liquid that collects in the bowl every hour for 3 hours. Then you check after 2 hours, then after a couple. Then, at the 12 hour mark, scoop out all the stuff in the filters into a new set of filters. TRUST ME! It's important to drain out as much liquid as possible. It make it more "cheesecake-like". After 12 hours, it'll be done. One way to know that it's done is that you'll be able to peel the coffee filters away from the yogurt when you put the yogurt in a bowl. 


Set aside and make your tarts


Ingredients for tarts:

• 1.5 cups of graham cracker crumbs. (about 6-8 crackers put in the blender)
• 1/4 cup of butter, melted<-- GOTTA USE THE BUTTAA
• muffin or tart pans (dollar store tins that bend are better)
• a bar of chocolate

Crush the crackers in the blender. Then, mix it with the butter. You want it to be *barely wet* or *damp*. You want it to *just* be able to be pressed in the tin. If you've ever pressed eyeshadows with biosilk before, you'll know what I'm talking about. So, just spoon the stuff into a muffin tin and press around. Bake from 8-10 minutes. NO MORE THAN THAT! yay. 


Note, please use butter. I tried it with olive oil and it just crumbled. I don't think it has the fat that butter has... so the crumbs might not stick together as well. Once it's cool, spread some melted chocolate in the tart. Cool in the fridge until the chocolate is hard. Then pop them out of the tins and spoon yogurt inside. 


You can do this with different kinds of fruits! I made mine with an entire lemon but it was too sour >< So remember kiddies (and others), only half a lemon.


RANT TIME. I changed the color to blue so people don't get confused. Today, I gave my BF a tart to try, and he was like "oh okay i like it". Then later, I find out that he wasn't *that* crazy about it..

Well.. why don't you tell me beforehand? I *HATE* it when people don't tell me the truth when I ask. As long as you aren't an asshole about it, I appreciate your comments. Seriously. How else do I improve my cooking? Just say "there is too much lemon". Granted, men aren't that picky. Most of them will shove anything down their throats, provided that it's food and they're hungry. Still, when I ask for your opinion, give me your friggin' opinion. I rather have you "hurt" my feelings than be like "EVERYONE TRY THIS YUMMY THING" when it's not optimally yummy at all. Seriously. 

Like for example: I gave my bf some tarts to take home because I thought he liked them. IF YOU DON'T LIKE THEM THAT MUCH, DON'T TAKE IT HOME TO SHARE WITH THE FAMILY. DON'T FREAKING EMBARRASS ME LIKE THAT IN FRONT OF YOUR GODDAMN PARENTS. 

Really homefry? Really bro? Are you going to do that to me? I'd rather eat it myself than his parents to think that I'm a complete fail. Mind you, they don't like me that much already. But that probably has more to do with my makeup and such. 


Ugh.


Anyway, enjoy this recipe! See you next time.

Sweet potato cake with marshmallow topping

So I've haven't really been posting or when I do, I don't post about beauty. Why? Because I'm a lazy ass hoe. Seriously, minus the hoe part, I am. I haven't really been in the mood to post about beauty stuff so yeah. Yesterday, my dear bf came over and we made a sweet potato cake and roasted giant marshmallows to go on top. Usually people use the orange sweet potatoes, or American yams. I used Korean sweet potatoes. They're white inside. I used the recipe here from Better Homes and Gardens
except instead of canned sweets, I used 1 sweet potato, chopped, boiled until tender, pureed in blender. Also, I cut the recipe in half. You need 2 cups of sweet potato to match 17.9 oz of canned stuff. Finally, I thought my dearest would buy the REGULAR sized marshmallows. I got giants. I roasted them for 5 minutes until they became brown and started flattening out themselves. 

The creepy hand in the corner is my mommy.

Cooking: Lemon-Mint cake with Mango Creamcheese frosting

Today, I made a lemon-mint cake with mango cream cheese frosting. The cake is nice and light but I think that the frosting could have used some more sugar. The mint is more prominent but the lemon still comes through and nice and tangy. 

I basically glopped the "frosting" on. It was pretty thin. I put the cake in the fridge and the frosting hardened up a little. But the cake is cold. It's actually nice when its cold. 

I used the recipe from Sunshine and Smiles 

but I substituted olive oil for butter and used baking powder. It's nice and rich from the eggs. 

Mango Cream Cheese Frosting: Basically mango puree, cream cheese and some sugar. I didn't have an electric beater so I had to use a spoon. UGH. I didn't even have a spatula. 

Quick cooking expedition: Honey carrot cake with Nutella Icing

Today, I decided to meander through the world of baking! You know what inspired me? Literally, I had a dream that I made vegan cupcakes with zucchini. NO JOKE. I woke up and I was like "I have to do it". I mean I didn't really make vegan zucchini cupcakes because I didn't have zucchini... But here is the cake I made! Recipe after picture. 

 It looks like I used wheat! But its not! Yay!

Recipe:

• 2 cup flour
• 1 carrot
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1 3/4 cup honey
• 1 large spoonful nutella
• a scraping of ginger (err not sure if you can taste it lol. Probably not)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

1. Peel the carrot. Then, using the peeler, make thin sheets of carrot. Chop the sheets of carrot. I did this because I felt like you don't get the fiber-ey texture of shredded carrot. In fact, you can barely feel the carrot! Good for getting kids to eat veggies :)
2. Mix flour, salt, baking powder together. I used a whisk to get the lumps out lol. 
3. Mix vanilla, egg (lightly beaten), honey, nutella, carrot together. It looks pretty nasty right now, but its okay! It should be really watery. 
4. Add flour and such into the egg stuff and combine until smooth. 
5. Bake for approx 20 min. Top with nutella when cool. 

Thats it! If you don't have nutella, just use choco chips and idk! Go crazy! I mean, I didn't have a lot of stuff in my house.. so I basically just improved LOL.