A couple weeks ago, a friend and I got together to bottle some peaches. We also made peach honey and we loved it.  I had a variety of plums at my house and we just weren’t eating them.  So, I figure I would try to make some plum honey and see if it worked out.  I really enjoyed the taste and texture.  It is a very good spread for breads. Also, if you thin it out, it makes a great glaze for cakes and such.

First you will need a bunch of the fruit; in this case plum. Wash and cut them. Boil with a little bit of water and about 1/2 cup sugar.

Let is boil until most of the fruit turns into a mush.  Then strain it to obtain the juice.

Make sure to scrape the bottom of your strainer.

Measure the amount of juice you have and pour it into a sauce pan.  Bring it to boil on medium heat and add 1/2 of the amount of juices of sugar (ex if you had 2 cups of juice, add 1 cup of sugar).  Cook until it starts to thicken. Mix constantly.

Keep mixing often until it gets very thick.

You can now pour into jars and process the jars, or just keep jars in the fridge.

YUM!

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Brazilian Beans

2 cups beans (black, red or pinto beans)
4 cups water (or more)
1 medium size chopped onion
4-5 cloves of garlic
3 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper
Green onions (optional)
Optional:  cut bacon (or Canadian bacon) or 1 sliced Portuguese sausage

How to make it:
Cover beans with water in a pressure cooker, (water level should be about 2-3 inches above the beans). Close the pressure cooker and place at medium heat. It will take about 30-40 minutes to cook the beans after the pan is pressurized (steam starts blowing out).  After the beans have cooked,  let the pressure cooker cool completely before  opening it to check if beans are soft enough. If they aren’t cook for longer. The whole process takes about 1 hour.
Note: ALWAYS wait for your pressure cooker to cool down before you open it!

If you don’t have  a pressure cook, let the beans soak overnight and use a sauce pan to cook the beans.  Same process, just cover them with water (about 2-3 inches above the beans). Cook until beans are soft.

Here is where the Brazilian part comes from….

In a sauce pan saute the garlic and onions with the oil.  Add the boiled beans, salt, pepper and green onions. Let the beans cook until liquid gets thicker.  It will take about 20-30 minutes.  Taste for seasoning; if needed add more salt.

You could also add the bacon/sausage during this time.

If your sauce is not getting thicker, smash about 1/4 cup of the beans with a fork and mix it with the rest.

I have been talking about rainbows with my son, telling him stories, etc.  I thought it would be fun to make a rainbow cake with him.  He is always cooking with me in the kitchen. This was a fun, messy project. Just as any project with a 2 year old would be.  I saw this idea online in many other blogs and decided to try it.

Rainbow Cake:

For the cake: (you may use a box of yellow or white cake mix)

6 eggs

2 1/2  c sugar

3 c flour

1 T baking powder

1 1/4 c milk or water

1 t vanilla

8 T butter (melted)

Mix the milk (or water) with the butter and vanilla. Set aside.  Using an eletric mixer, beat the egg whites until soft peaks. Add the yolks, one at a time. Mix in the sugar until fluffy.  Add  1 cup of flour and 1/2 of the liquid mixture.  Keep doing this until all the flour is used.  Stir in the baking powder.

For the Colors:

I used gel colors from Wilton. They give a nice vibrant color.  You may also use liquid if you want.

You will need the colors of the raibowl: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet (I used the same for the last 2 colors)

Divide the cake batter until 7 containers and color each one with its color.

Spray a cake pan with oil and dust it with flour. Then add the colors one by one on top of each other.

Bake for about 35- 40 minutes or until cake is done.

You may decorate as much as you want. I decided to leave my without a frosting. I used a little bit of orange juice and sugar to make a syrup and drizzled that on top of the cake.

My son had a lot of fun making this with me. He is still asking for the rainbow cake every day!!!

I love pesto sauce. I usually plant Basil, however this year I was not very lucky. I planted my beautiful basil and they were going great, until a little dog of mine decided to eat it all!  And I never got to go plant more… busy summer! However a dear friend of mine gave me some of her delicious fresh sweet basil and this is what happened to it:

Pesto Sauce:

2 cups basil leaves (you may also use the flowers)

2/3 c toasted pine nuts

5 clothes of garlic

Salt and Pepper to taste

1/4 c shredded Parmesan cheese

1/3 c olive oil (may need a little more)

Wash and dry your basil leaves.

In a sautee pan, toast the pine nuts slightly.  Keep an eye on it!

This time I used my Magic Bullet, but usually I make this on a food processor. Add the basil, pine nuts, garlic, Parmesan, salt and pepper.

If you are using the magic bullet add the olive oil with all the other ingredients. You may need to add a little bit of water just to get things going, pulse until it is all mixed.

If using a food processor, mix the ingredients and slowly add the olive oil until it all blends in nicely.

I love to use pesto sauce for sauces (if you want creamy add a little bit of cream or Alfredo sauce to it), pizzas, shrimp. It is also a delicious spread for toast.  Enjoy it!

PS: This is a very strong pesto. That is the way we like it in our house

Cheesecake is also a lot of fun to make. It can be a little tricky to keep the top from cracking, but even if the top cracks it is still cheesecake and it is still delicious!  I will also share some tricks about keeping your top nice and smooth at the end of this post!

Bunches of Chocolate Cheesecake:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F if using a silver spring form pan, or 325 degrees F if using a dark nonstick spring form pan.

For the crust:
1  cup crushed oreo cookies
1/2 c crushed grahm crackers
1 T sugar
2 T melted butter

Lightly grease the bottom and sides of a spring form pan (9 inch). Mix the oreos, graham crackers and sugar together. Add butter and mix with your fingers. Press into the bottom of the pan and set it aside. You could use any type of crackers to make this crust. I like using oreos and graham crackers together. It feels like the graham crackers make the crust a little lighter then just using oreos alone.

For the Chocolate Cheesecake:
16 ounces of cream cheese (softened at room temperature)
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon chocolate essence (extract)
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon cocoa
3 eggs
1 1/2 cup sour cream
8 ounces melted dove dark chocolate, cooled slightly

Using an electric mixer, combine cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and chocolate extracts and beat until creamy. Add the flour, cocoa and mix until smooth.

Add the melted chocolate and sour cream, mix well.

Then add the eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition until just blended. Pour the batter into prepared pan and bake for about 1 hour. Or until the center is almost set. It will be a little wobbly when you touch.

Cool the cake on a wire rack. Top it with Chocolate Ganache:
4 ounces of melted chocolate (dove dark chocolate)
1/2 cup of heavy cream
Mix it well and spread it over the cheesecake.

Refrigerate. Top with chocolate shavings and fresh raspberry. Enjoy!

To prevent crack tops:
The top of the cheesecake can crack because of the temperature is too hot. You could cook your cheesecake in a water bath and bring it to cool very slowly to prevent the top to crack. Also running a knife around the rim of the pan when the cake is cooked and cooling will allow cake to pull it from the sides and prevents cracking.  You could also use a thermometer and make sure your cheesecake does not go over 150 degrees F.

If you are lucky to have a Cheesecake Factory close by, today is the day to go visit it.  They are offering 1/2 of on any slice of cheesecake! Which is an amazing deal!

Now if you are not brave to go to the cheesecake factory today, don’t you worry I am going to share with you my favorite No-Bake Cheesecake recipe. This is delicious and impressive for a No-Bake recipe.  If you want to make the “real” thing, just stay tuned. I will be making a chocolate cheesecake  for this Sunday’s dinner and will post the steps and recipe next week.

Here is the amazing No-Bake Cheesecake

1 (9 inch) Graham Cracker Crust

1 (8-oz) pkg. Cream Cheese, softened

1 (14-oz) can Sweetened Condensed Milk

1/3 cup Lemon Juice

1 tsp. Vanilla

1 (21-oz) can Cherry Pie Filling

Beat cream cheese until fluffy. Gradually beat in the sweetened condensed milk until nice and smooth.  Stir in lemon juice and vanilla.  Pour into prepared crust. Chill 3 hours, or until set up.  Top with pie filling before serving!

YUM

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.

This was a fun challenge. It was perfect for the hot summer we are having!  I thought it was light and easy to use your creativity. You could make a white cake, chocolate cake. You can choose so many different ice cream flavors and the fudge just brings it all together.   I decided to make my bombe with a chocolate cake, filled with a Peach whipped cream. Inside the bombe I choose to have vanilla ice cream, chocolate fudge and peaches.

First you will need to make The cake:

6 medium sized eggs

1 C sugar + extra for rolling

6 tblsp   flour + 5 tblsp unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted together

2  boiling water

a little oil for brushing the pans

Pre heat the oven at 400 F . Brush the baking pans ( 11 inches by 9 inches ) with a little oil and line with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, add the eggs and sugar and beat till very thick; when the beaters are lifted, it should leave a trail on the surface for at least 10 seconds.

Add the flour mixture, in three batches and fold in gently with a spatula. Fold in the water.

Divide the mixture among the two baking pans and spread it out evenly, into the corners of the pans.

Place a pan in the center of the pre-heated oven and bake for about 10-12 minutes or till the center is springy to the touch

Spread a kitchen towel on the counter and sprinkle a little sugar over it.

Turn the cake on to the towel and peel away the baking paper. Trim any crisp edges.

Starting from one of the shorter sides, start to make a roll with the towel going inside. Cool the wrapped roll on a rack, seam side down.

Repeat the same for the next cake.

The cake filling-

2 C whipping cream

1 vanilla pod, cut into small pieces of about ½ cm (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)

5 tblsp caster sugar

1/2 c of peaches (I took the skin out and diced them into small pieces)

Grind together the vanilla pieces and sugar in a food processor till nicely mixed together. If you are using vanilla extract, just grind the sugar on its own and then add the sugar and extract to the cream. Beat cream and vanilla sugar until very thick. Fold in cut peaches.

Open the cake rolls and spread the cream mixture, making sure it does not go right to the edges (a border of ½ an inch should be fine). Roll the cakes up again, this time without the towel. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge till needed, seam side down.

The vanilla ice cream-

2 and ½ C whipping cream

1 vanilla bean, minced or 1 tsp vanilla extract

½ C of granulated sugar

Grind together the sugar and vanilla in a food processor. In a mixing bowl, add the cream and vanilla –sugar mixture and whisk lightly till everything is mixed together. If you are using the vanilla extract, grind the sugar on its own and then and the sugar along with the vanilla extract to the cream.

Pour into a freezer friendly container and freeze till firm around the edges. Remove from the freezer, beat till smooth and return to the freezer. Do this 3-4 times and then set completely.

The Hot fudge sauce-

 1 C sugar

3 tblsp cocoa powder

2 tblsp cornstarch

1 and ½ C water

1 tblsp butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

In a small saucepan, whisk together the sugar, cocoa powder, cornflour and water.

Place the pan over heat, and stir constantly, till it begins to thicken and is smooth (for about 2 minutes).

Remove from heat and mix in the butter and vanilla. Keep aside to cool .

How to put it all together:

Slice your cakes into about 1 inch slices.  Line a bowl with plastic wrap and  arrange two slices at the bottom of the bowl, with their seam sides facing each other. Arrange the Swiss roll slices up the bowl, with the seam sides facing away from the bottom, to cover the sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till the slices are firm (at least 30 minutes).

Soften the vanilla ice cream. Take the bowl out of the freezer, remove the cling film cover and add the ice cream on top of the cake slices. Spread it out to cover the bottom and sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till firm ( at least 1 hour)

Add the fudge sauce over the vanilla ice cream.  Fill it with peach slices and cover with the rest of cake. Freeze till firm ( at least an hour)

Place the serving plate on top of the bowl. Turn it upside down and remove the bowl and the plastic lining. If the bowl does not come away easily, wipe the outsides of the bowl with a kitchen towel dampened with hot water. The bowl will come away easily.

Slice and serve! YUM

6 oz (half of box) thin spaghetti or angel hair pasta

1/2 c of shredded Mizithra cheese

1/3 c butter

Cooked Shrimp (to taste)

I like to shred the Mizithra Cheese in the fine size of my shredder.

Cook pasta according to package directions.  In a sauce pan, heat the butter on low heat until it is all melted. Turn up the heat a little bit and cook the butter until it starts to foam. Keep stirring so it doesn’t stick to the bottom or burn.  Cook until butter has a nice golden color. Keep an eye on the butter since it only takes seconds to turn from the nice golden brown color to a black burn color. You don’t want the black color!  The butter will have a nice aroma and it will look beautiful. This is called brown butter. It can be make ahead of time and refrigerated.  Then all you need to do is reheat when needed.

Gently toss the pasta in the butter sauce. Add cooked shrimp and Mizithra cheese. Sprinkle a little bit of parsley.

I like to serve this with a nice green vegetable. Steamed broccoli, green beans or bok choy.

Can top with parsley, sun dried tomatoes, chicken and/or mushroom!!!

My friend  Heather, from Savvy Sister Shops, asked me to do a guest spot on her fabulous site. I am honored that she thought of me, so I wanted something seriously delicious and economic for her readers. I love this recipe because many of the ingredients I used are products that you can get for an amazing price (even free) using coupons.  I thought that would fit perfectly with Savvy Sister Shops website.

Head on over to Heather’s page for the recipe, and be sure to stick around for awhile – her tips are amazing!