Crazy Cooking Challenge: Layered Mocha Cheesecake

 

It's the seventh day of the month, and that means it's time to share with you another great Crazy Cooking Challenge.  In this challenge, all the participants make and blog about the same dish each month.  Each blogger is to post a unique version of whatever that month's dish is.  This month's assigned dish was cheesecake.  So we were to find a great cheesecake recipe, make it, and blog about it.

I was super excited about this challenge because I love cheesecake.  It's probably my all-time favorite dessert.  I love everything about it: it's rich and decadent, has a smooth and creamy consistency, and it's so versatile.  It's good just plain, with berries, or with a multitude of other flavors, including chocolate, of course.  You definitely feel like you've had dessert when you're done with a slice of cheesecake.  It drives me nuts when people (usually skinny people), say that they don't like cheesecake because it's just too rich, or it's just too sweet.  Dessert is supposed to be rich and sweet!  To me, that's like saying, "I don't like that steak because it's just too tender and juicy."  Yes, I hate it when people complain about dessert being too sweet.  I'm just not one of those people who can plop some whipped cream on fresh berries and call it dessert.  I wish I was, but nope, I'm not!

I have made a cheesecake from scratch before, but it was years ago.  I think it was when my mom graduated with her bachelor's degree in 1996.  Maybe.  Anyway, it's been so long that I don't remember when it was.  So I started looking around to see which recipe to make.  There were so many that I wanted to try.  My first thought was to make Martha Stewart's margarita cheesecake, but then this other one caught my eye, and there was no turning back!  It's from Taste of Home, and it's a double-layered cheesecake.  One layer is rich chocolate, and the other a creamy coffee flavor.  It was topped with a chocolate ganache and garnished with chocolate-covered coffee beans.  It looked like heaven on a plate!  So I had to make it.  It did not disappoint, and I was very pleased with how mine turned out.  Here's my slight adaptation.

Layered Mocha Cheesecake

Ingredients:

1½ cups Oreo cookie crumbs

¼ cup butter, melted

3 packets Starbucks Via instant espresso

1 tbsp hot water

½ tsp ground cinnamon

4 packages (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened

1½ cups sugar

½ cup flour

2 tsp vanilla extract

4 eggs, lightly beaten

2 cups (12 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips, melted and cooled

½ cup semisweet chocolate chips

3 tbsp butter

1 (2.5 oz.) package chocolate-covered coffee beans, about 48

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325°.

Coat a 9” springform pan with baking spray and place on a double thickness of heavy-duty foil (about 18” square). Securely wrap foil around pan.

In a small bowl, mix cookie crumbs and ¼ cup butter; press onto the bottom of prepared pan. In another bowl, mix the instant espresso, hot water, and cinnamon; set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and vanilla until smooth. Add eggs; beat on low speed just until combined.

Divide batter in half. Stir 2 cups melted chocolate into one portion; pour over crust. Stir coffee mixture into the remaining batter; spoon over chocolate layer. Place springform pan in a large baking pan; add 1” of hot water to larger pan.

Bake for about 90 minutes or until center is just set and top appears dull. Remove springform pan from water bath; remove foil. Cool cheesecake on a wire rack for 10 minutes; loosen side from pan with a knife. Cool 1 hour longer. Refrigerate overnight.

Remove rim from pan. For glaze, in a microwave, melt remaining ½ cup chocolate chips and 3 tbsp butter; stir until smooth. Spread over cheesecake. Place coffee beans around the outside edge. 

Makes 16 servings.

I used decaf Via for this.  I'm so sensitive to caffeine that even the caffeine in the chocolate affects me, so definitely decaf for me.  If you are making this for mixed company, I would suggest using decaf.  Three packages of Via is a lot of coffee, so there will be tons of caffeine if you use regular.

I could go on and on about how amazing this cheesecake is, but I think I'll just let the pictures do the talking!

 It was so pretty I almost didn't want to cut into it. . . .almost.

This is actually a double piece, but I wanted a substantial chunk of it to show you.  The coffee beans serve a  double purpose: They make it really easy to cut the cake into equal portions.  I fit 48 coffee beans around the edge, so that means that you will get 16 pieces if you make a cut every 3 coffee beans.  That's kind of neat!

I was wishing we had some family visiting the weekend I made this, to help us eat it.  Not that we didn't want to snarf the whole thing, but you saw that ingredients list, with the FOUR packages of cream cheese in it!  Thankfully, some friends of ours just came home with a new baby, and they had some family staying with them, so we were able to give away almost half of it to them.  We had no problems taking care of the rest. :)

Keep this recipe in mind the next time you want to wow some people with a great cheesecake.  It really was very easy to put together.  And check out all the other great cheesecakes below!

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Secret Recipe Club: Grilled Ginger Lime Chicken Thighs

 It's the first Monday of the month, and that means it's Secret Recipe Club reveal day.   The Secret Recipe Club is a group of food bloggers who secretly make one of someone else's dishes and post them all on the same day at the same time.  It's really fun, choosing a recipe to make, making the recipe, then reading about everyone else's recipes.  It's a great way to "meet" other bloggers and check out some great blogs that you never knew about before.

Again, this month I was assigned a blog that was new to me, A Fit and Spicy Life.  It is written by Mellissa, who describes herself as being a "30 something, food loving, wine drinking, weight lifting, traveling, yogi blogger and FitFluential Ambassador living in Minneapolis. A true Mid-Western girl."  She started her blog as a way to document a trip to Italy in 2009, then found that she loved blogging so much that she wanted to continue.  Her blog isn't just about food though; it is filled with posts about fitness, travel, and wine as well.  

Mellissa has a great collection of recipes on her blog.  She lives a very healthy lifestyle, and her recipes reflect that.  However, they are anything but bland and boring.  I saw several dishes that caught my eye. I recently bought a panini press and am totally obsessed with paninis right now, so her Grilled Ham, Prosciutto, and Pear Sandwiches got my attention.  I also liked the looks of her Cilantro Pesto with Lemon Pepper Pasta, and her Chicken and Summer Vegetable Tostadas.  But I ended up with a recipe that included one of my favorite things to eat in the summertime: chicken thighs.  Mellissa has a great recipe for Broiled Ginger Lime Chicken Thighs that sounded amazing.  I decided to adapt it for the grill.  I love grilling chicken thighs because they don't dry out and the skin gets crispy and delicious.  Here's my adaptation of Mellissa's recipe.

Grilled Ginger Lime Chicken Thighs

Ingredients:

1 lime

1 tbsp fresh ginger, grated

1 large clove garlic, grated

1 large shallot, minced

1 tsp salt

6-8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs 

Directions:

Zest lime and set zest aside for garnish later (if desired).  Juice lime and put juice in a small bowl.  Add ginger, garlic, shallot, and salt and mix well.

Divide ginger mixture evenly among chicken thighs and stuff it underneath the skin.  

Grill thighs over medium heat, 10-15 minutes per side.  Cook until internal temperature reaches 160°.  Remove from grill and garnish with lime zest, if desired.

Makes 3-4 servings.

It's such a simple recipe, but man, it packs a flavor punch!  Mellissa used green onions instead of the shallots, but I just love the flavor of shallots and ginger together, and I don't like how green onions get wilty-looking after being cooked.  I also threw some garlic in there for good measure. :)  Mellissa also put some curry powder in the mix, but I was afraid it would overpower the other flavors, so I left it out.  

I served this chicken over gingered brown rice with carrots on the side and it made the perfect summertime meal.  These thighs work really well on the grill, but I might have to use Mellissa's broiler method when I'm craving them this winter.

Thanks for a great recipe, Mellissa!

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Strawberry Lemon Cake Bars with Lemon Glaze

Finally Friday! It's the last day of The Garden's Bounty recipe series hosted by Savannah of Hammock Tracks.

We are ending on a sweet note.  Today we are sharing with you desserts that use up fresh garden goods.  I chose a great summertime dessert with tangy lemons and juicy sweet strawberries.  This recipe is slightly adapted from one I found at Bakeaholic Mama.


Strawberry Lemon Cake Bars with Lemon Glaze


Ingredients:
1 cup butter, room temperature
¾ cup sugar
1 egg
Zest of 2 lemons (2-3 tbsp)
Juice of 1½ lemons (about ¼ cup +2 tbsp), divided
2¼ cups flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¾ cup fresh strawberries, diced
1 cup powdered sugar


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°.  Coat an 8x8” glass baking dish with baking spray.


In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together.  Add egg, lemon zest, and ¼ cup lemon juice.  Stir until combined.


In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir until just combined.  Gently fold in strawberries.


Press dough into the bottom of the pan.  Bake for about 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Let cool.


For the glaze, combine the powdered sugar and remaining 2 tbsp lemon juice.  Pour over cooled bars.  Cut and serve.


Makes 9 bars.

These bars are so good!  Lemon and strawberry go so well together and they are perfect summer flavors.  The blog I got this recipe from called them "cookie bars", but they seemed more cakey to my husband and me.  They are kind of crumbly, not chewy like a cookie.  So I named my version "cake bars" instead.  Whatever the name, you'll call them delicious!

Check out the other great summertime desserts below.

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Avgolemono (Greek Lemon Egg Soup)

It's Day Three of The Garden's Bounty recipe series hosted by Savannah of Hammock Tracks.

Today we are sharing soup recipes.  Soup in the summer?  I know.  I get totally obsessed with soups in the winter, but hardly ever have them in the summer.  But guess what?  I have an awesome summer-friendly soup for you today.  It is super light and lemony and perfect for summertime.  It was March when I made this soup, but it was during that weird March heatwave, so it was like 84 degrees that day.

Have you ever heard of Avgolemono?  Click on that link to read all about it, but the gist of it is that it's a Greek soup made up of lemon juice and eggs.  Orzo is cooked in chicken broth, then a mixture of lemon juice and eggs is added to thicken the broth.  Meat is optional; I chose some shredded chicken breast for mine.  Topping it off with fresh dill finishes it perfectly.


Avgolemono


6 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
½ cup orzo, dry
Salt 
5 eggs
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
Fresh dill


Directions:
In a large saucepan, bring the broth to a boil.  Add the orzo and cook until tender but still al dente, about 7 minutes. Season with the salt and reduce heat to low; let simmer.


In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and lemon juice until smooth. Ladle about 1 cup of the hot broth into the egg-and-lemon mixture, whisking to combine.


Add the mixture back to the simmering saucepan. Stir just until the soup becomes opaque and thickens as the eggs cook, 1 to 2 minutes. Add chicken and taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper if necessary.  


Serve warm.


Makes 4 servings.

I know that the dill is technically the only garden produce here, but if you live in Florida, you could count the lemon too. :)  This soup is just so perfect for summertime that I had to share.

Be sure to check out all the other great soups below and come back on Friday when I will share with you a delicious summery dessert.

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Avocado Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad

It's Day Two of The Garden's Bounty recipe series hosted by Savannah of Hammock Tracks.

Today we are talking salads.  I've had this pasta salad waiting in the wings for a while now, ever since I made it for my daughter's second birthday party in early June.  I thought this would be a great time to share it with you.  While it's probably not what you would first think about when someone mentions salads and garden produce, it does have fresh veggies in it and it's perfect for summertime.  It's an adaptation of one I found at The Daily Dish Recipes.

Avocado Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad


Ingredients:
1 lb. dried tri-color spiral pasta
¾ cup mayonnaise
¾ cup ranch dressing
2 avocados, pitted and cut into 1″ pieces
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
½ cup kalamata olives, pitted and sliced
12 slices bacon, cooked and cut into 1″ pieces


Directions:
Boil the pasta as directed on the package. Drain and rinse with cold water to cool the pasta. Set aside.


In a small bowl, mix the mayonnaise and ranch dressing.  Set aside.


In another small bowl, toss the avocado in the lemon juice.


Pour the pasta into a large serving bowl. Add the tomatoes, sliced bacon, olives, and avocado. Gently stir in the dressing.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 45 minutes.


Serve cold.


Makes 12 servings.

The combination of flavors in this pasta salad is amazing.  Creamy and buttery avocado, chewy and salty bacon, juicy and tart tomatoes, tangy olives, and a cool and mildly ranch dressing to tie it all together.  So good!  It does make a lot, so it's perfect for a crowd.  It does keep pretty well, except for the avocados.  I had some left over from my daughter's birthday party, so I kept snacking on it for a few days.  I just ate around the avocado. :)

Check out the other great salads below and come back tomorrow for a soup that's perfect for summertime.

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Roasted Asparagus and Mushroom Quiche

It's going to be a fun week here on Edesia's Notebook. I'm participating in another fun blog hop series hosted by Savannah of Hammock Tracks.  This series is called "The Garden's Bounty" and includes a week's worth of recipes chock full of fresh garden produce.

Today we are sharing with you casseroles or other hot savory dishes, tomorrow will be salads, Wednesday will be soups, Thursday will be preserves, pickles, or salsas, and on Friday we will share with you some sweet treats to end the week.

The hot savory dish I chose for today is a quiche that I created a few weeks ago.  My family loves quiche (my four-year-old daughter Lena calls it "egg pizza" because it's wedge-shaped), so I make it for dinner quite often.  I have already shared with you my Broccoli Cheddar Quiche and my Spinach Cheese Quiche with Potato Crust.  I happened to have a handful of mushrooms and some asparagus leftover from some other meals, so I thought they would be fantastic in a quiche together.  Since roasting is the only way I prepare asparagus, I tossed the mushrooms and asparagus together and roasted them for the quiche, maximizing their flavor.  The resulting quiche was amazing.


Roasted Asparagus and Mushroom Quiche


Ingredients:
½ lb. fresh asparagus, trimmed
4 oz. fresh mushrooms, chopped
Olive oil
Kosher salt
6 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup shredded Swiss cheese
½ tsp salt
9” pie crust


Directions:
Preheat oven to 400°.  Line a baking sheet with foil.  Cut asparagus into 1” pieces.  Place asparagus and mushrooms on baking sheet and drizzle with oil.  Sprinkle with salt.  Roast 12 minutes, stirring halfway through.  Remove from oven and let cool.  Reduce oven temperature to 350°.


Combine eggs, cheese, and salt in a medium bowl.  Add roasted asparagus and mushrooms.  Pour into pie crust.  Bake 30-40 minutes or until set.


Makes 6 servings.

This quiche did not disappoint.  The roasted flavor of the veggies comes through nicely and gives the quiche an added depth of flavor.  I'm not a big fan of Swiss cheese, but it is very mellow in this dish and seemed to fit perfectly.  

Check out the great savory vegetable-packed recipes below, and come back tomorrow to see some great fresh-from-the-garden salads!

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Breakfast Meatballs

Who's ready for breakfast?  Today I have for you a very simple, yet genius breakfast recipe.  Meatballs!  Meatballs for breakfast?  Yep!  It's a brilliant idea and recipe I found over at Budget Gourmet Mom.  Ground sausage, pancakes, and maple syrup all rolled into little bite-sized balls.  Pure genius.


Breakfast Meatballs


Ingredients:
2 lbs. bulk sausage
¼ cup maple syrup plus a little extra to drizzle
1 egg
4 pancakes, cubed


Directions:
Preheat oven to 375°.


In a medium bowl, mix the sausage, syrup, and egg together.  Mix in the pieces of pancake until evenly distributed.  Form into balls slightly larger than a tablespoon and place on a baking sheet.


Drizzle with some additional maple syrup and bake for 22-25 minutes.  Serve warm.


Makes 24 meatballs.

 Mix together sausage, egg, and maple syrup.

Chop up a few pancakes.  If you really want to make these meatballs but don't want to take the time to make pancakes first, you could chop up a few warmed up frozen waffles.  I haven't tried it that way, but I'm sure it would work.

 Mix pancake pieces into the sausage.

Shape into balls and bake.

Couldn't be easier.  And makes a wonderful, tasty breakfast.  If you want to turn these into a grab-and-go kind of breakfast, you could freeze them after baking (laid out on a baking sheet so they don't stick together), then throw them in a large freezer bag.  In the morning, take out however many you want, pop them in the microwave for a minute and you're good to go!

Be sure to come by on Monday, which is the first day of another great blog hop series I am participating in.  It's called "Garden's Bounty" and it's five days of recipes that use fresh-from-the-garden produce.  We will be sharing with you fruit and veggie filled recipes for hot savory dishes, salads, soups, preserves, and desserts.  Don't miss it!

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Improv Challenge: Golden Cheddar Corn Cakes

It's reveal day for the Improv Challenge.  The premise of this challenge is easy: each month there are two assigned ingredients.  The participants must make a recipe using both ingredients and blog about it.

This month's assigned ingredients were corn and butter.  Yummy!  Anything with those two ingredients has to be good.  I had made some corn cakes a couple of months ago, but hadn't posted them yet because I felt they needed tweaking.  This challenge gave me the perfect opportunity to do so!  I added cheddar cheese to them and topped the warm cakes with butter, which immediately melted and made the best topping.  Here's the recipe.

Golden Cheddar Corn Cakes

Ingredients:
2 cups fresh corn kernels (about 4 ears), or 1 can of canned corn
½ cup green onions, sliced
¼ cup + 1 tbsp vegetable oil, divided
4 eggs, separated
½ cup flour
½ cup yellow cornmeal
1 tsp salt
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Butter

Directions:
In a blender or food processor, pulse corn until chopped but not smooth. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in green onions, ¼ cup oil, and the egg yolks.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, salt, and cheese. Add to corn mixture and mix thoroughly but gently.

In a clean bowl, whisk or beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold into corn mixture.

In a large frying pan, heat 1 tbsp oil over medium-high heat. Working in batches of 4, drop large spoonfuls of the corn mixture into pan. Cook until edges begin to set and undersides are browned, about 2 minutes. Flip and cook until cakes are browned and cooked through. Remove from pan and immediately top with butter.  Serve warm.

Makes 4 servings, 4 (2”) cakes each.

You may think it's kind of a cop-out to just put butter on top, but let me tell you, that is the best part!  The first time we had these corn cakes, we didn't top them with anything and ate them dry.  They were bland and just kind of "blah".  The addition of the cheddar cheese certainly helped a lot, but putting melty butter on them put them over the top.  We use real butter sparingly because it's so unhealthy, but this is one instance where a splurge is warranted.

I actually split this recipe and make two different batches.  I make half of it as written above, and I make the other half without cheese or butter for my kids, since my little one is allergic to dairy.  It really isn't that much extra work to split it in half like that.

These make a great side dish for summer grilling, and if you make them tiny, would make a great party appetizer with some kind of yummy topping.  They are really quite versatile.

Stephanie from Sustainable Cooking for One chose to make this recipe when she was assigned my blog for the Secret Recipe Club in February 2013.  Click on the button below to check out her post!

Check out all of the other great corn and butter recipes below, and come back next month to see what I create with tomatoes and peppers!

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Eating the Alphabet: Kiwi Lemon Pie

 It's time once again for the Eating the Alphabet Challenge.  This month we had to chose a fruit, vegetable, grain, bean, or legume that began with the letter K or L.

K and L are pretty easy letters to work with.  Kale, kiwi, kumquat, lettuce, lime, lemon.  Lots of choices.  I decided on a recipe that used both of the assigned letters, K and L.  I made a pie with kiwi and lemon.  I found the recipe at RecipeLand.  Here's my adaptation.


Kiwi Lemon Pie


Ingredients:
1¼ cups milk
1¼ cups sugar
3 tbsp cornstarch
3 egg yolks, lightly beaten
½ cup fresh lemon juice
Zest of 2 lemons
1 tsp vanilla extract
9” graham cracker crust
¼ cup apricot preserves
2 kiwi fruit, peeled and sliced



Directions:
Preheat oven to 325°.


Heat milk over low heat in top of double boiler over simmering water.


Combine sugar, cornstarch, and egg yolks in a medium bowl.  Add a small amount of the warm milk, stirring constantly.  Add another small amount of milk to the sugar/egg mixture, stirring until combined.  Gradually add the sugar/egg mixture into the warm milk, stirring constantly.  Increase heat to a boil, then lower heat and cook 5 minutes, or until mixture thickens.  Whisk in lemon juice, zest, and vanilla.  Pour mixture into pie shell.


Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until center is set.  Cool pie for 10 minutes.


Melt preserves in the microwave and brush thin layer over surface of pie.  Arrange kiwis to cover top of pie.  Brush again with remaining preserves and cool in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour or longer.


Cut into wedges and serve.


Makes 8 servings.

As you can see in the picture above, my pie turned out less-than-perfect, which is a nice way of saying "kind of messed up!"  I did kind of mess it up.  But it wasn't the recipe's fault, it was mine.  Well, the first problem I had was that it called for the juice of 3 lemons.  Well, the lemons I had were total monsters.  They were about twice the size of a normal lemon, which you can see above.  So I had to do some research to see how much juice to use.  

The second problem I had was that I ran out of cornstarch.  I needed three tbsp and only had about two.  I tried to compensate for this by removing some of the milk.  It kind of worked.  I had to cook the pie a lot longer than stated to get it to set up.  And well, there were some other complications, but I won't bore you with the details!  In the end, while it wasn't the prettiest looking thing, it tasted good, so that's all that matters!

 I took too long taking pics and the filling started to ooze out on me.  

I took pictures of the intact pie very strategically!  (Trust me, this was the "good" side!)

So yeah, I had some problems, but it ended up working out.  My husband loved it so much he said he wanted to stick his face in it.  That makes it a success in my book!

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