Chocolate Cheesecake Raspberry Brownies

I have seen this recipe a couple of times on other sites and it always looked so good. I had just bought some nice organic frozen raspberries at the markets, so thought this would be a good time to use them.

I love brownies and I love cheesecake, so this was definitely a hit for me!

The photos were taken on my Iphone, as my camera had no battery left, so they are not the best quality.

First you make the cheesecake mixture

Then you make the brownie mixture

Weigh out the strawberries, then it's time for layering

Spread out 2/3 of the brownie mixture on the base

Put the whole of the cheesecake mixture on top of that, then drop spoonfuls of the brownie mixture and spread it around so it creates a marbling effect.

Put the raspberries on top of that and then bake it in the oven

Baked and ready to be cooled and then cut into pieces.



The final product! It was very yummy. You can serve it with cream, ice cream, or just have it plain.

Choc Cheesecake Raspberry Brownies

Ingredients:

1 cup flour, sifted
2 cups sugar, divided
200g butter, cut into pieces
200g dark chocolate, chopped
150g raspberries, fresh or frozen
400g cream cheese, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 eggs, room temperature

For the brownie batter:

Preheat oven to 180ºC. Butter a 8″x 12″ (20 x 30) baking tray. Line with baking paper.

Beat the softened butter with 1 cup of sugar until slightly fluffy. Add 3 eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water (or in a microwave on 30 sec bursts). Let cool slightly. Stir into the butter and sugar mixture. Add the sieved flour and carefully fold it in.

For the cheesecake batter:

Put the cream cheese in the bowl of your stand mixer. Add the 2 remaining eggs, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 tsp vanilla extract. Beat until it’s a smooth, creamy mixture.

Putting it all together:

Spread 2/3 of the chocolate mix on the bottom of your baking tray. Pour the cream cheese on top and spread it out evenly. Now drop little pieces of chocolate mix on top of the cream cheese. Lightly work it in with a fork—like you’re marbling a cake. Push the raspberries into the cream cheese.

Bake at 350°F (180ºC) for 40 to 45 minutes or until the cake feels set when gently touched in the center. Let the brownies cool off completely, preferably overnight, before cutting them in squares.

Eggplant Chicken Parmigiana

I love Chicken Parmigiana, it's a bit time consuming and messy to put together, but it tastes so good and you can get it all ready to go and then just stick in the oven when you are just about to eat it.

I usually just have chicken, but this time I had some extra eggplant in the fridge, so decided to fry that up as well and stick it on top of the chicken. It was so yummy!

I served it with a roasted pumpkin salad, in which I cubed some butternut pumpkin and tossed it in olive oil and salt and roasted in the oven for about 45 mins at 180 degrees. I did this while I was preparing the parmigiana, so that it was done by the time I put the chicken in the oven. I let the pumpkin cool and then mixed it with some rocket and Caesar salad dressing just before serving.

Chicken on bottom, then eggplant and tomato sauce

Cross-section of dish

Ready to go in the oven!

Chicken Eggplant Parmigiana - Serves 2

1 Chicken Breast
Flour for Coating
1 Egg
Breadcrumbs
Olive oil for Frying
Eggplant - Optional
1 Clove Garlic
1 small brown onion
Tin of Crushed Tomatoes
Red Wine Vinegar
Fresh Basil
Mozzarella Cheese
Parmesan Cheese

1. First chop the onion and garlic and saute in olive oil until soft

2. Add the tin of tomatoes to the garlic and onion and let this simmer, while stirring occasionally, while you prepare everything else.

3. Cut the chicken breast in half and then place the halves between glad wrap and smash it with a mallet, or rolling pin, or whatever you fancy

4. Place the flour on a plate and season with salt and pepper, whisk the egg in a wide shallow bowl, and put the bread crumbs on a different plate

5. Grab the flattened chicken breasts and dip in the flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs. Put them on a plate and place in the fridge while you fry the eggplant

6. Slice the eggplant in 1/2 cm slices, put some oil in a pan and get it nice and hot. Once the oil is hot, fry the eggplant until it is nice and soft. You could do this on a grill pan, but I don't have one of those....yet. Once they are done put them on a plate lined with kitchen towel to absorb the extra oil. Eggplant needs a lot of oil..

7. Once the eggplant is done, you can now fry the chicken. Use the same pan, and you will need to add more oil if your eggplant hasn't soaked it up already. Fry the chicken breasts on each side until they are nice and golden.

8. The tomato sauce should be ready now, splash in about 1/2 tbs red wine vinegar and mix through some fresh basil leaves. Taste and check for seasoning. I sometimes add a bit of sugar to my sauce as well.

9. It's time now for layering the dish. In an oven proof dish put the chicken breasts, then layer the eggplant, then spread the tomato sauce all over it. Then grate or slice your mozzarella on top and shave the Parmesan over that. I don't specify any cheese quantities, as it's up to you what you think is enough.

10. Place in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for about 20 minutes, or until the cheese are melted and turning brown.

I usually serve this with a salad as I find it is quite filling. Hope you enjoy it!

Bella Vedere - Yarra Valley

So I have been away for a while... Since moving to Canberra I haven't been excited to eat out and photograph food as much as I had in Sydney. There are some great places in Canberra, but there are a lot more places that aren't great as well.. It is also so much more expensive to eat out here than Sydney as well, which means I have been cooking a lot more than going out.

So my blog now will probably have more entries of my cooking than my eating out. So lets see how we go this time!

Firstly I will take you back to a couple of months ago when Frankie and I went on a week's trip to the Yarra Valley. I had never been there before, so wasn't sure which place to book for a nice dinner. I had a booking at Mt Rael, but they were doing some renovations so I had to change our venue. So I looked at what had Chef's hats in the region and Bella Vedere was close to where we were staying and had some good reviews, so I booked us in there.

They have an a la carte menu, but on Friday and Saturday nights they have a set menu of 5 courses for $95. Everyone is asked to be seated by 7:30pm so they can get everyone's drinks underway in preparation for the announcement of the menu!

Tonight's menu is heavily based on cheese and ends up being too rich for me in the end and didn't get to try the dessert. We also got matching wines with each course, and they give you very full glasses!!

We started off with an amuse bouche of risotto balls. Can't remember exactly what was in it besides rice and cheese, but it was very tasty.


This was a smoked trout soup which had a quinelle of marscapone or some type of cheese. This was so beautiful. Although the serving bowls weren't the easiest to eat soup out of being wide and shallow.

The second course was a three cheese risotto with a hazelnut and rocket salad. The risotto was cooked perfectly and very satisfying. I shouldn't have eaten all of it, maybe then I could have fit in a bit of dessert...


Next up was slow cooked lamb. I think it was cooked for 24 hours or something and then rested it by the open fire. It was so good. I love roasted lamb and this was melt in your mouth. I would have preferred a bit more salad though..

The final savoury dish of the evening was a grapefruit, mandarin, Persian feta and hazelnuts. This was a combination I hadn't had before, but it all worked so well together. I was doing well up until this point and then I had a bit more of the feta and it just pushed me over the edge.

The dessert was a bombe alaska type dessert and when they brought the dessert to the table, they poured over some type of liqueur and lit it up. It was very cool.

All the wines were from around the region and were perfectly matched. We hadn't done much wine tasting yet, so it was good to get a taste of the wines before we tried to visit every winery in the yarra valley!

Frankie

Me

Bella Vedere Cucina
Badgers Brook Estate
874 Maroondah Highway
Coldstream VIC

Ph: 03 5962 6161

Breakfast and Lunch served Wed - Sun from 8:30am
Dinner Friday and Saturday from 7:30pm

Sugaroom

Finally I am up to date now!

Last week was my birthday, so the night of my birthday Frankie took me to a restaurant that we have been meaning to go to for a while, and on Sun - Thurs it's byo ($10 corkage per bottle mind you) so it was perfect. We had booked a table to sit outside, but it was quite chilly, so we sat inside instead. If it was only a few degrees warmer it would have been perfect.

I had been here with my friends a few years ago for a Sunday lunch and remember the place having really great food and really good prices. I don't think the food has gone up too much since then, but the food wasn't as great as I remember it, still good but not excellent. The service started out really good too and then as more and more people started arriving the service started slipping. We were left with the glass from our amuse bouche on the table up until just before we got our dessert course. Overall it was a very good night though and left the restaurant feeling very full!

View of Kitchen from our table

The menu we chose from was their Autumn menu, which must have just come into place. I like a restaurant that has a seasonal menu. The food is in season and if you go back again you have a different selection of meals to choose from.

Amuse Bouche

As we were about to order our meals frankie looked at the kitchen bench and saw a tray of these glasses sitting there for another table. He was like "what is that?" to the waitress (as he was interested in ordering it) and she said it was the amuse bouche and everyone got one. So we were happy about that! It turned out to be a cauliflower and cumin soup and it was really delicious! Probably the best thing of the night..I got my mouth amused for sure!

Complimentary Bread

I love it when restaurants supply bread. I think all should. Maybe they think people will fill up on it too much and won't order as much food. This was sourdough bread and was very good. I personally prefer when bread is warm, but if it's sliced it might be a bit hard.

Oysters Natural - $18

We decided to share a couple of entrees. There was a special of oysters, so we got them. They came with a red wine vinaigrette which was very nice.

Shaved Bresaola Carpaccio w/ basil, Parmesan, and horseradish cream - $15

The flavour of the meat and cheese was very strong and overpowered everything else. So i couldn't really taste the basil or the horseradish which was a shame.

Pork Confit w/ roast fennel, cauliflower puree and salsa verde - $29

This was very tasty. It wasn't really what i was expecting as all the meat inside was kind of shredded. I would have really just preferred a nice fillet or something like that. Parts of the fennel were a bit undercooked as well.

Swordfish w/ eggplant salsa - $32

Frankie went with the special of the night which was the swordfish. I must say that I am not a fish fan but this was really good. It was seasoned perfectly as well.

Baked Peach Crumble w/ Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and Raspberries - $15

Usually we only get one dessert when we go out, but seeing as it was a special occasion we decided to get 2! The special was a baked peach crumble which sounded very good. I didn't expect it to be a whole peach, more like a cut up one and baked. It looked a bit like fried ice cream! It was cooked perfectly and everything really complimented each other.

Chocolate Pave w/ pistachio ice cream - $15

As chocolate is my favourite dessert, we had to get the only chocolate dessert on the menu. I didn't really know what a pave was but it was chocolate so it must be good! It was very good it tasted like a chocolate mousse, but firmer. Their ice creams were excellent as well, makes me want to go out and buy an ice cream maker!

Frankie

Me

Outside View

Big Ship

Sugaroom
Shop 2, 1 Harris Street
Pyrmont NSW
Ph: 9571 5055

Lagoon Restaurant Wollongong Take 2

Last time we went to Wollongong we had such a good and relaxing time. When we had nothing really planned for NYE, except at night, we decided to spend the day in the sun at Wollongong. Of course we had to eat something though, so we chose to revisit the Lagoon to try their a la carte menu.

When we got in there we were given a beautiful table right next to the window, although the window was open and there was a nice breeze, but a bit too breezy as the table cloth kept flapping and blowing and covering the table. Luckily they closed the window so it didn't happen all throughout the meal.

We were so tempted to get the seafood platter again but resisted. Instead we started with a mixture of oysters and some bread.

Wood Fired Sourdough - $6.90

Oh my god this bread was soo good and so big as well. Most places when you order bread it's enough for 2 people, but this could have fed about 6 people. It was beautiful and warm as well. I had to stop myself eating it so i wouldn't ruin my appetite!

View from our table

Mixed Oysters - $24.50

At around $2 an oyster, these were really good. We had 4 natural, 4 wasabi and white horseradish and 4 thai chilli and lime. I love oysters so much, I wish I could afford to eat them every day.

Saganaki Snapper - $27.90

I decided to go with the Snapper for main. Let me tell you they don't skimp on the sizes here. The mains are huge and very tasty. I could only eat half of mine. It was a bit different from what I expected but it was still delicious with the cheese and tomato (best combination ever).

Snapper Fillets - $29.90

I can't remember what Frankie ordered. I think it was the snapper fillets? Whatever it was it was very good and a massive serving.

Greek Salad - $11.50

We also ordered a greek salad, which I hardly touched as my main meal was like a greek salad anyway with the cheese, tomatoes and olives.

Frankie

Outside View

The Lagoon Restaurant
Stuart Park
North Wollongong
Ph: 4226 1677

The Codfather

My friend recently moved to Stanmore...well a year ago now! Across from her place we noticed this small restaurant, which was called the Codfather. She had never tried it, as she doesn't eat seafood, but it looked quite cool so Frankie and I decided we had to try it out one day.

We booked for a Friday night, on the actual Friday, so we didn't get a booking until about 8:30pm. We arrived around that time and had to sit outside while we waited for our table to become free...30 mins later we were in!

Now i don't remember too much of this food, as it was so long ago, but one thing i do remember was that it wasn't great, just nice. The maitre d wasn't the most attentive person either. He seemed like he was panicking all night about nothing and then when we were ready to hand in our bill, he made a gesture to just leave it on the table as he was too busy having a chat and drink with one of his friends! The waitresses were lovely though!

The price was a set deal sort of thing where you got 2 courses for $35 or 3 courses for $45 and there were some dishes that added extra onto the price if you got them. The price was something like that. Can't remember exactly.

Please excuse the photos too as they were taken with my mobile..

Amuse Bouche - Can't really remember what this was..

Cod Placemat

Zucchini Flowers

Scallops with black couscous and beetroot - Frankie liked this one

Frankie

Barramundi with Thai salad

Frankie's fish dish

Polenta chips with Aioli - these were really good!

Us!

The Codfather
83 Percival Street
Stanmore NSW
Ph: 9568 3355

Open Tue - Sat 5pm - 9:30pm
Sunday noon - 3pm

Serai on Cleveland

I am back! Well we will see how long for... I have been unmotivated and stopped taking pictures when going to eat out, but after hearing that a few people were wondering what had happened to my blog, I am going to try again and see how I go. I have a few photos from places that I went a while ago, so I am going to start with these...but will be hard pressed to remember exact details as it was so long ago!

Frankie and I were going out for dinner in Surry Hills one night. I think we had planned to go to a different restaurant but when we walked past this place we thought we would try it out instead! The place was empty except for us but the menu looked good and affordable and we hadn't had Malaysian for a while.

Satay Skewers - $8

We decided to start off with satay! You can't go to a Malaysian restaurant and not get satay. Usually the chicken is quite flat and small, but this was plump and juicy (just the way I like it). The sauce was excellent as well!

Satay Closeup

Rojak - $8

I had never had Rojak before and had seen it being made on Food Safari and thought it looked delicious. Although this wasn't exactly like what i saw it was still very delicious. I think I had a peanut sauce overload!

Beef Rendang - $13.90

As well as satay you always have to get rendang and this was delicious and so cheap! The meat was fall apart in your mouth, as it should be.

Salad - $1.50

We also got a salad, you may ask why, well it was $1.50! I have never seen a salad anywhere for that price, so of course we had to get it. The one behind was Achar Awak (spicy mixed vegetable pickle) which was also $1.50.

They have a few house specialties as well which would be great to try, like fish head curry! I think you have to let them know 24 hours before or something whether you are going to order it though, so make sure you do if that's what you're going to order! I would definitely recommend this place and would come back again. So good food and very cheap!

Serai
421 Cleveland Street
Surry Hills NSW 2010