Tuesday, May 06, 2008

{My eventful birthday}

Took leave today because nobody should work on their birthdays! haha.. Calvin can't be around because of that course that seems to be never-ending!!

I invited some dear friends over and we had a blast trying to whip out yummy lunch for ourselves. Thank God Long came too... he's a chef, you see... haha. So my kitchen turned into a mini restaurant kitchen with a head chef (Long) and many other cooks (Diane, Audrey, Teri, Ben and me). It was great fun!!

So, the day started with me waking up at 7am and getting ready to bake my birthday cake. I decided to bake cheesecakes as I've been thinking about it for quite a while. Used the "baked cheesecake" recipe in the book Esther bought for me last year.
    ~ Baked Cheesecake ~
    Makes 1 dozen (or 28 minis)

    Ingredients:
    125g digestive biscuit crumbs
    5 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
    450g ricotta cheese
    450g cream cheese, softened
    2 tsp vanilla essence
    175g icing sugar, sieved
    3 eggs
    150g fresh blueberries

    Method:
    Preheat the oven to 160 deg C. Place 12 paper baking cases in a muffin tin.

    Put the digestive biscuit crumbs into a medium bowl and stir in the butter. Spoon tablespoons of the crumb mixture into the cases, pressing firmly into the bottom. Chill until set.

    In a large bowl, beat the ricotta cheese until smooth. Add the cream cheese, vanilla and icing sugar, blending until smooth. Slowly add the eggs, blending well. Spoon the mixture into the cases.

    Bake for 25 minutes. Remove tin from oven and cool for 5 minutes. Then remove the cupcakes and cool on a rack. Chill until time to serve. Serve topped with blueberries.

I call them Mini Chocolate Swirl Cheese Cuppies (^__^)

I added some "decor" on my cakes... chocolate swirls.. :p I couldn't find ricotta cheese in both Phoon Huat and NTUC Xtra! So I replaced the ricotta cheese with cream cheese. It didn't turn out too bad. Except that I think the texture shouldn't be like this had I used ricotta cheese. But anyhow, everyone liked my cheese cuppies!! yippee!!

Then met up with the gang at AMK Hub to do grocery shopping. And here's what we whipped out after more than 3 hours in the kitchen...

~ Diane's Baked Potato Salad with her self-made dressing~

~ Cream of Wine & Mussel Soup (this is damn good!) ~

~ Spicy Prawn & Scallop with Aglio Olio Angel Hair (again) ~

    ~ Cream of Wine & Mussel Soup ~
    Serves 4

    Ingredients:
    1.5kg mussels, cleaned
    40g butter
    3 garlic cloves, crushed
    300ml white wine
    750ml fish stock
    150ml double cream
    2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
    Salt and ground black pepper

    Method:
    Discard any open mussels that do not close when tapped sharply. Heat the butter in a large saucepan and fry the garlic for 1 minute. Add the mussels, pour over half the wine, cover the saucepan tightly and cook over high heat for about 4 minutes, to steam the mussels until their shells open.

    Drain the mussels through a colander or fine sieve placed over a clean saucepan. Stand the colander over a bowl and put to one side. Add the remaining wine and stock to the strained liqour and heat gently until simmering.

    Discard any shells that have not opened. Shell about 2/3 of the mussels and add them to the soup. Warm through a few seconds, then remove the saucepan from the heat. Stir in the cream and parsley, with salt and pepper to taste. Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with the remaining mussels in their shells.

And here's my wonderful company for my wonderful day (^__^)


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Posted by minimin at 9:54 PM |


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