Churros Cheesecake

I hate Internet Reels :-) because they tricker me to try them.

All kinds of foodies are posting their versions of this cheesecake. Churros is a Spanish Choux pastry. This "Churros" cheesecake has no similarity due to a very different cake base.

Some use puff pastry, others use Croissant ready made dough.  I took the last one. The good puff pastry dough with butter was sold out everywhere. Only the palm oil ones were available. Brrr...

Cinnamon sugar is the only ingredient that authentic with Churros.

Recipe for a small loaf tin:

300g  cream cheese

1 egg

50 ml double cream

2 tsp vanilla sugar, 2 tsp vanilla paste

25 g potato starch

80 g sugar

1 Kraft Croissant Dough

Cinnamon/ sugar mix

Mix 3 tsp sugar with 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven 180 C.

Open the dough roll and lay it flat. Cut in 2 rectangles and close the little holes. Sprinkle half of the sugar mix on the bottom of the loaf tin and put 1 piece of dough on top.

In a bowl combine the other ingredients and pour them on the dough. Set the second piece on top. Sprinkle with the leftover sugarmix.

Bake for 30 min and let cool down for 30 min before taking out. Let it then cool completely.

Egg grated on a Sandwich

A fancy way to present a toast with egg on top.

Make it more economical and more profitable. Some restaurant owner may have come up with this for whatever reasons. Made it a trend and the Internet loves it.

One egg is enough for two slices of toast.

I saw that a couple of times, mostly on avocado toasts. But sometimes this combination gets lame. Something different as a base was what I was looking for in my fridge. Smoked ham looked good to me. And one of my homegrown cucumbers. 

Yesterday I bought some cornbread at the bakery. I love it a lot and it keeps fresh a couple of days too. A thick slice of it went in a buttered pan to get toasted. Ham and cucumber on top.

A hard boiled egg and a microplane came next. Grated egg on a sandwich. 

Lets say, it is an Internet trend. It makes a lot of mess and it tastes just as a slice of egg on bread.

Pirogi with Strawberry and Cherry filling

Eating out in a woodland cafe was a great idea.

The family who ones this place and cooks is from Poland, but living here for 15 years. They worked in nursing homes, then decided it was time for something new.

The standart food is beer garden food, that can he found everywhere. But a part of the menu is Polish food. 

Lots of differently filled Pirogi. Mostly savoury with potatoes, cabbage or mushrooms doused in bacon sauce. But the sweet ones are there too.

The dessert pirogi were filled with either strawberry jam or cherry jam. The sauce was creamy and had some strawberry in it.

It was a large portion, so my BFF and I shared one.

Cheese topped Schnitzel

My BFF and I are looking for a Beer Garden where we can organize a meeting with former coworkers.

Since the pandemic, many restaurants have shut down or have less opening hours. It is a huge problem to find a place that is open for lunch and stays open until the evening to sit together with our former coworkers.

We do some scouting and found a couple of decent restaurants. Sitting outside is a premium in many places.

In an absolut out of town location we've got lucky. The only downside are the opening days. Just Wednesday and Sunday. We will have to go for a Wednesday. 

The food is good and the menu is pretty short. Beer Garden seating is available and the forest surounding the place is pretty big. Nearly half a mile from the main road away.

I choose a pork Schnitzel topped with cooked cheese - Kochkäse.

My BFF choose a meatloaf. 

Vegan mixed Veggie, Beluga Lentils and Oat Rice Soup

That tastes a lot better than it sounds!

I had to prepare my jars of veg stock paste for the next couple of month. The amount of leftover veggies is the reason for this soup. I could have cooked a pure veggie soup, but I wanted some protein and some carbs.

This time the protein is plant based. I have so many different colored lentils at home. While dusting my storage place, I found the Beluga lentils. Little black pearls. 

Beside the lentils was the Tupperware container filled with French oat rice. I bought that in France, but only cooked some of it once. These were the carbs for the soup.

The soup itself has a light green tint. Mist of the veggies were from the green vareity.

Ingredients:

60 g oat rice

60 g Beluga lentils

4 tsp homemade veg stock paste

2 tbsp olive oil

650 ml hot water

2 celery stalks, 2 Swiss chard colored, 2 green onions, 1 Bok choy, 

350 g broccoli florets

Pepper, 2 tsp paprika, 2 tsp smoked paprika, salt

Cook the oat rice first in a small pot for 12 min. Drain and cool down. Cook the Beluga lentils for 25 min and drain and cool down.  Chop all veggies.

In a large pot heat up the oil and toss all veggies in. Let them get a bit soft. After 6 min add the veg stock paste and the hot water. Season, but be careful with the salt. There is a lot in the veg stock paste. Reduce the heat to low, cover with a lid and cook for 15 min.

Take a stickblender and make a coarse soup. Add oat rice and lentil and cook for 5 min. Check the seasoning.

White Chocolate Spinach and Almond Cake

Everybody eats carrot cakes, but many people hate spinach.

Why not give this cake a try? It is a recipe from a local newspaper and a special in the month of April. Spinach is in season, especially when you can use the frozen one. That makes live in the kitchen a lot easier.

The white chocolate gives a good balance to the earthy taste of the spinach. The cake is not too sweet and it keeps a couple of days, because it wont dry out. The spinach brings the moisture to the cake.

Recipe for a bundtcake tin (2,5 l ):

300 g frozen spinach leaves

125 ml whole milk, 250 g butter

250 g sugar, 4 medium eggs

100 g white chocolate

300 g AP flour, 1 tbsp baking powder

200 g almond flour

Pinch of salt

Icing sugar 

In a pot defrost the spinach, squeeze out the liquid. Put in a blender together with the milk and make a fine blend.

In the standmixer put in butter and sugar and beat it until creamy. Add the eggs, one after the other, add some of the flours and beat in between.

Add the other parts of the flour/almonds and salt and baking powder.

Butter and flour the bundtcake tin and pour the batter in.

Preheat the oven 175 C and bake for 90 min. Let the cake rest 5 min in the cake tin, then turn the cake out

When it is cold, sprinkle with icing sugar.

 

Air Fryer Kaiserschmarrn or ripped Pancake

I sometimes love to have the Austrian dessert Kaiserschmarn. But it takes a lot of time to get it right in the pan and you need a lot more butter.

Baking it in an air fryer was new to me. I saw different recipes on Pinterest. They may all work for a special size of air fryer, but the sizes are not published.

Mine is a round one with a 20 cm diameter. The recipe that will follow is for one a little bigger. It worked, but a quarter less batter would have been better.

I love some raisins in my Kaiserschmarrn. They go in some apple juice and get microwaved for 1 minute to plump up again. Then just drain the juice and let them sit for a while.

Recipe:

3 eggs

50 g butter

35 g brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

115 g AP flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

150 ml whole milk

30 g raisins, soaked in apple juice

Icing sugar

Baking paper for the air fryer

Separat the eggs. Beat the egg white until stiff.

Mix yolks, sugar, vanilla, salt, flour and baking powder together and loosen it with the milk until you have no lumps.

Fold in the egg white. Pour in the baking paper dish in the air fryer. Scatter the raisins on top. Mine does not need to be preheated.

Bake at cake setting at 170 C for 15 min. Check after 12 min. When it is set, take it out, rip it apart with 2 forks and dust it with icing sugar.