Mini Blackberry Cheesecakes

The blackberries in my backyard are ripen and I’ve been picking them daily for a couple of weeks now. What did I do with them? I’ve been making blackberry smoothie e-v-e-r-y day (mix with strawberry or beet or pineapple with OJ and yogurt). And for the hubby, he loves to eat them fresh with cool whip on top! That’s just his style.

The hubby has been asking me to make him cheesecake for quite sometimes now. So, I decided to fulfill his quest for cheesecake. Luckily, there are still some berries left for me to pick for a few day, and I’m thinking of making mini blackberry cheesecakes before they are completely gone.  Sounds good, right?

But first, I’m making blackberry sauce with the berries the hubby picked yesterday. After that, I just add the sauce into the cheesecake batter, and also, for the topping. I made approx. 2 cups of sauce, but would use only 1/4 cup for the cheesecakes. The sauce can be used for pancakes, waffles or ice cream or whatever you like!

 

The result? I would try not to be over-the-top here for these cheesecakes, but they are sooooooooooo gooooooooooooooood!   Not too sweet, yet creamy still with the hint of Greek yogurt that you can taste it.   The additional sauce on the top that bleeding through the cheesecake is…...hmmm…...........
I have two words, heavenly delicious!!!  

Blackberry sauce:

2 1/2 cups fresh blackberry
Juice + zest from 1 orange
1 cup sugar

: add everything in the sauce pan over medium heat and cook until the berries are soften and broken down for about 15 minutes
: strain the sauce through the fine strainer and discard the seed. Set it aside.




Blackberry Sauce!

 For the crust:   makes 12 servings

1 cup ground graham cracker
3 tbsp. melted butter

: preheat the oven to 350’F
: line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners
: stir in the melted butter with ground graham cracker to mix well
: fill 1 1/2 tablespoon in each cup with the crust mixture and firmly press down with the bottom of the glass or anything that fit the muffin pan to compact the crust
: bake at 350’F for 5 minutes, take them out and leave the oven on

 

 

 For the filling:

8 oz. Philadelphia cream cheese
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt (I used nonfat)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup blackberry sauce

: while the crust is baking, in the medium bowl, beat the cream cheese and sugar with the handheld electric mixture at medium speed until smooth, and then add the yogurt, egg and egg yolk, and vanilla extract until the batter is completely smooth, and then stir in the blackberry sauce to mix well.   The batter will turn pink!
: fill the batter into the baking cups evenly
: bake for 15 minutes or just as the center of the cheesecake is set
: remove from the oven and let them cool down a bit for 10-15 minutes
; top each cheesecake with 2 tablespoon of the blackberry sauce and put in the freezer for 15-20 minutes
: remove the cheesecake from the freezer. The sauce on top would not freeze but it will seep into the cheesecake
: serve and enjoy with more fresh blackberries and sauce, if desired

Enjoy!

 

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Baked Quinoa-Egg in Maple Bacon Cups

I am a little obsessed with quinoa lately.  And I have to admit that I try to follow the quinoa trend right now.   But quinoa is soooooooo good for our health and that should be enough reason for me to do that.  Right? 

 

I made quinoa salad with sunny side-up egg on the previous post, and made Thai spicy quinoa-coconut croquettes another day, which I didn’t post it for an unforgivable reason – I ate them all before they could make it to my blog!

 Yeah, I knew, I ate like a pig!  

I promise I will try to make it and share with the world soon.

Today I decided to incorporate the quinoa with eggs filled in maple bacon cups for breakfast.   To be honest, I should have cooked the bacons just to crisp them first before filling in the egg mixture because they weren’t crisp enough as I had hope for.  So, I turned up the boiler and turn the egg cups upside down back to the muffin tins and put in the oven under the boiler for another 10 minutes to cook the bacon a little more, I didn’t take any picture of this step because it’s too embarrassing to show.    Dooohh! o_o

 

Oh boy, I was glad I did. The crispy maple bacon gave lots of flavor to the egg and quinoa. I even finished eating 2 of them before I finished taking photographs, and I was so stuffed!

If you wonder why quinoa is good for you, check this out from whfoods.org


What you need:   make 9 egg cups
4 large eggs
1 cup cooked quinoa
1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese + for topping
1 package (3.5 oz.) mushroom, root trimmed
3-4 mini sweet pepper or bell pepper, diced
1/4 cup chives, thinly chopped
9 pieces maple bacon, cut in half
Salt and pepper to taste

How to:

- Preheat the oven to 350’ F

- mix the entire ingredients in the mixing bowl

- arrange two half of bacon into the bottom of each muffin tin crossing each other for the base

- fill each cup with the egg mixture and top each with cheese

- bake for 25 minutes or until the egg and bacon is cooked and crisp 

 

 - let them cool down before remove them from the pan

 

 

 

Enjoy!

 

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Dazzling Udon Noodle Soup with Simple Ginger-Miso Broth ...

 What not to love when just stayed at home and it was raining all day.

L.A. got unexpected rain yesterday.   All of the plants and lawns were soaking wet; streets and roads were all cleaned up.   Though the air got a little cooler but it absolutely smelled fresher than it usually was.   I just love the rain!  And when it rains, nothing could be more perfect than a big bowl of hot noodle soup to boost up the soul.    Yeah? 

 I’ve made noodle soup at home countless times because the hubby and I loved having noodle soup, especially when the weather got a little chilly.   This time I was trying to have some fun with the Udon noodles by adding the color to them using beetroot to turn the white noodles to something that look more...hmm,,,fun?   The noodles turned into deep orange carrot-like which I didn’t expect it.   I thought the noodles were going to be red since the beet was so bloody red in color!   Either ways, the orange Udon noodles were just so pretty to eat!

 

However, you don’t need to go through this to dye your noodles. Udon are just as good as the way they are.  But dyed Udon with beet was sure looking very interesting.  Don’t you think?

The ginger and miso broth for this bowl of noodle soup was very easy to make. Add fresh ginger + white miso paste + chicken stock + light soy sauce into a big pot and heat it up, done! Though dashi or bonito flakes are usually used for the base, but a tablespoon of light soy sauce would work as well. Add vegetables and protein of your choice. Whatever you like, really!

What you need:  for 3-4 servings-depends on how hungry you are!

For Noodles:

2 (3.5oz.) packages Udon noodles

1/2 of medium raw beet, chopped
2 cups water

For Soup:

6 cups chicken broth

1 tbsp. light soy sauce
1 1/2 tbsp. white miso paste
2 tbsp. fresh ginger, thinly sliced
1 cup daikon, thinly cut into bite size
1 cup carrots, thinly sliced
1 package shimeji mushroom, cut off the root end
2 handful baby spinach
6 oz. Red Kamaboko or Japanese steamed fish cake, sliced
1/4 cup green scallion, thinly sliced
Ground white pepper

How to:

- Add chopped beet to a pot of 2 cups of water and bring to a boil over medium-high for 4-5 minutes and add Udon noodles into the boiling beet water and cook the noodles for another 2 minutes. Take off the heat and leave the Udon noodles in in the pot to soak up the color of beet for about 10 minutes, then drain out the beet water and set aside.
- Meanwhile, heat up the chicken broth over medium heat. Add soy sauce, ginger, daikon, and carrot to the pot and let it cook for 10-15 minutes. Then add steamed fish cake and mushroom and let it cook another 3 minutes.
- Turn off the heat and add the miso paste by put the paste into a small bowl and use the broth from the pot to break the paste down and add back to the pot, stir well. Add baby spinach and ground white pepper.
- The noodle can be added into the pot or arrange separately between bowls and add prepared soup over. Spring green scallion over each bowl before serving.

 

 

Enjoy!

 

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Simple Green Tea Waffles & Honey-Strawberry Syrup

I had the itch to make waffles for breakfast for weeks, but I just couldn’t find the time to make them because there were so many things in my mind lately…

Until this morning, I woke up earlier than usual (only 20 minutes early! Hehehe!) to the lovely sunshine and I immediately jumped to the kitchen and whipped up the waffle batter to fulfill my longing for waffles. Didn’t even really that I ran out of maple syrup until the hubby had mentioned that to me. Oh well! Lucky that I had a box of fresh strawberry sitting in the fridge for my smoothie that I could cut them up and mix with honey to go with my green tea waffles. Perfecto!

These green tea waffles were so light and airy with a strong hint of green tea and tasted so good just for itself without syrup – this confirmed by a big guy with sweet tooth!    I ended up eating my crispy waffles by dipping it in my hot coffee, just the way I like it. That just awesomely made this sunny day even brighter!  (^o^)

This batter made enough for 5 people. So, I put the leftovers in the Ziploc and freeze them for later!

 What you need:   for 10 regular size waffles

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. Matcha green tea powder
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 large eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 tbsp. vegetable oil
2 cups fresh strawberry, chopped
4-5 tbsp. honey

How to:

- Gently toss honey and strawberry together and set aside.
- Sift together (or not, up to you, I did) flour, green tea powder, baking powder, salt and sugar in a medium mixing bowl.
- In another bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, vanilla, and oil. Add to the bowl of mixed flour and mix well until it has no lumps remain.
- Make the waffle accordingly to the waffle manufacture.
- Serve warm with honey-strawberry syrup or whatever your favorite syrup is…

Enjoy!

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