December…my favorite time of the year!

Coz it’s all about X’mas! I love shopping for gifts and I love getting gifts too! I love the festive lights and the holiday tunes! And don’t forget the yummy cookies and food during this time of the year where friends and family reunite!! I do however cringe when I think of the shopping part when the mall is crowded with holiday shoppers. For that reason, I usually try to shop early!

My X’mas tree is now up! I put it up the day after thanksgiving and will soon pile the nicely wrapped presents under the tree. I love X’mas so much I hum X’mas songs in July and drive my poor husband up the wall! Haha! Welcome December….my favorite month of all!

Jackfruit Cheesecake (Tart)

For Thanksgiving, I decided to make my Jackfruit Cheesecake. It’s perfect since I have guests over and they could help me taste and give me some feedback on this Jackfruit Cheesecake, even though it was not the first time I made it. The result, my guests loved it! It was a great success (again), and this time I’m sharing the recipe here especially for one of my reader, Jenny. Jenny emailed me last month and requested for my Jackfruit recipe I made a while back and I wanted to retry the recipe before sharing it here!

Again, I made the cheesecake in a tart pan because I like that the filling would not overwhelm me and the cheesecake surface would most likely be crack free. If you want a regular size cheesecake, just use about 8 oz of cookie crumbs with about 1/3 of melted butter. Double the filling recipe to get the regular cheesecake height. Bake it for about 1 hour or until the center is set. I read some recipe where they bake the cheesecake for 1 hour, shut the oven and leave the cheesecake in the oven overnight. That apparently will avoid the cracks on the cheesecake. Over mixing of the filling will also cause cracks on cheesecake. Since I’ve been making my cheesecakes in a shallow tart pan, I’ve never encountered the cracks. Touch on wood!

Here’s my jackfruit cheesecake recipe!

JACKFRUIT CHEESECAKE / TART RECIPE

Ingredients:

Part A (Crust):

• 1 Box (12 Oz) Nilla Vanilla Wafers
• 1/2 Cup Butter, Melted

Part B (Filling):

• 2 – 8oz Cream Cheese
• 1 Can Jackfruit (in Syrup)
• 2 Large Eggs
• 1/4 Cup Milk
• 1/2 Cup Sugar
• 1/8 Tsp Jackfruit Extract (Optional)
• 1 Tbsp Flour

Method:

Mix Part A together until it feels like wet sand and press the mixed crumbs onto the bottom and the sides of a 9” tart pan. I use the bottom of the glass to help me press the crumbs.

Puree the jackfruit flesh (about 8.5 Oz when drained) with 2 tbsp syrup until it’s smooth. That gave me almost 1 cup of Jackfruit puree. Set aside. Preheat oven to 350F.

Cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one by one and mix until smooth. Add in milk, jackfruit puree and the optional jackfruit extract. Finally sprinkle in flour and mix batter well. Pour cheese mixture into tart pan. Bake tart for about 45 minutes until the center is set. Remove and let cheese tart cool before chilling in the the refrigerator. Serve cold.

June’s comments: I forgot what brand of canned Jackfruit I used for this recipe. I thought that the jackfruits I used this time wasn’t as fragrant as I like it. I therefore added a some jackfruit extract for taste and coloring into the cheese mixture. I bought the the Jackfruit extract from an Asian store. You could probably get it in a Filipino store as the one I got was labeled “Langka”; Tagalog (Filipino) for jackfruit. The extract was actually by McCormick.

When you pour the filling into the tart pan, it will look like the filling will not fit in the pan. All the filling does fit in the pan, and will bake just fine without overflowing. The filling will poof up like a dome, which will then recede when it’s cooled. You could actually just blend the jackfruit flesh with milk, instead of the syrup if you want the filling a little less sweet.

Finally… a DSLR!

I’ve been contemplating to get a DSLR camera for a year or two or three now. I came very close to getting one when Circuit City stores were closing down and they were liquidating their inventories a few months. I held back as I wasn’t sure which brand/model I REALLY wanted. NIKON or CANON?

I’ve been leaning towards a Canon DSLR, mainly coz I’ve been a Canon point and shoot camera user for years and I’ve grew fond of the Canon brand. Plus, it helps that my brother also owns a Canon DSLR. I love the pictures my current Canon Power Shot SD870 was able to produce. Almost all the pictures in my blog are taken from the SD870 which was a wedding gift from our friends; Seyda, Rob & Karan. It is definitely a great camera, but it’s also time for me to venture into a DSLR.

Darling hubby decided to get me my early X’mas pressie coz I’ve been nice all year. Contemplating between the Canon Rebel XSI and the Canon Rebel T1i and comparing their features..hubby made the executive decision to get me the newer model; Canon Rebel T1i. It was only a little more money to get the most current model. I was all smiles! I was in cloud 9. My wish to own a DSLR came true!! I will still be using the compact Canon camera though….it’s a very convenient little thing to have!! =)

Thank you, darling for my X’mas pressie! I love it and I can’t wait to (hopefully) take great pictures with it.

Merry X’mas, to me!

Sightseeing Chianti – October 7, 2009

We decided follow a short day tour to the region of Chianti, a famous wine making region in Tuscany. Following the tour was the best way for us to get there and not get lost! The tour cost us about Euro 40 (or more) per person and took about 4-5 hours. A double decked bus chauffeured us from the heart of Florence into the cascading hills of Chianti. Our tour guide, Simone was probably one of the best tour guides I’ve had!

Unlike the Asian (Chinese) operated tours in the US, the tour or the tour guide did not ask us to pay a compulsory gratuity to the guide and the driver. I’ve taken one Chinese operated tour in the US and was forced to pay USD 6 per person per day as a gratuity to the tour guide and the bus driver. I ended up paying over USD 140 for a 6 days trip for my family. Even though their website suggest the $6 of gratuity, in reality…. they MAKE you pay!  The worst part was, it was the tour guide does not speak very good English. I struggled so much trying to understand what she was trying to say, I ended up listening to her in mandarin as it was much easier. I pity the other non-Chinese tourists who doesn’t understand Mandarin. I was not the only one who encountered the problem with the so called “suggested” gratuity. My friends who recently took a North East trip also encountered such bad business practice! Their tour guide insisted them of paying USD 6 per person for tip even though the tour guide only picked them up from the airport at night! The airport pick-up ride was supposed to be complimentary. And they also had to pay the USD 6 per day per person to a not so worthy tour guide the next couple days! Ugh!

Well, back to my Chianti day trip…… the tour brought us to see a tiny church called the Church of Santa Brigida (Bottom Left). Nothing too interesting about the church, it was probably a ploy to make the whole Chinati day tour a little longer! Haha!

The soft rolling hills of Tuscany was definitely spectacular (Bottom Right)…….You’ll be surrounded by olive trees, vineries and other greeneries.

 

Another picture of the soft rolling hills of Tuscany (Bottom Left). This picture was taken at the Castello del Trebbio Winery which was the highlight of the trip.

Olive tree up close (Bottom Right). I guess, those are black olives? Or are they just ripe olives? Or bad olives? =P

 

And another view of the Tuscan hills from the Castello del Trebbio winery (Bottom Left).

Castello del Trebbio was once a fortress built in the 12th century for the Pazzi family. It was said that this fortress was where the Pazzi family planned the Pazzi conspiracy to kill the Medici family, which then failed. In the 15th century, the fortress was confiscated by the Medici family who turned it into a villa. The current owners of Castello del Trebbio bought the place in 1968 and have since produce various kind of wine, olive oil and even saffron. 

View of the castle from its garden (Bottom Left). We got a tour into parts of the castle/fortress. First stop was to the courtyard (Bottom Right). Apparently the owner of the winery still lives in this old castle. Everything was ancient looking in the building, and the rooms were big and cold. I don’t think I would want to live there…….at least not everyday! It just feels so scary!!!

Castello del Trebbio also offers villas and cottages nearby the main castle (I think) for vacation rentals and honeymoon for the newly weds. They also offer cooking class for those who’s interested in learning to cook some good Italian food, the Tuscan way.

View of the wine cellar view barrels of wine are being aged (Bottom Left). And also in the wine cellar we saw bottles after bottles of Chianti, all covered in dust (Bottom Right).

More wine being aged in different kind of barrels (Bottom Left). I forgot the names for these barrels, but I recall being told that they were costly and only have a shelf life of 3 years before it’s time to get new barrels.

With the tour, we got a tasting of 3 – 4 different kind of white and red wines that the winery produces. We were also given light snacks (Toast with their own olive oil, olive tapanade, bruscetta, salami and cheese) to pair the wines with (Bottom Right). 

  

Sangiovese grapes (Bottom Left); the grapes used in Chianti wines. We strolled into the vineyard (Bottom Right) and managed to sample some of the Sangiovese grapes. They tasted pretty good. =)

After a few hours, the tour bus took us back to the city. It was dinner time by the time we got home.

Serimuka

I was somehow craving for some Nonya kuihs and I really need to use up some of my glutinous rice. I bought a little way too much glutinous rice when I was doing my “Bak changs” (chinese rice dumplings). I bought 2 bags of rice, and I did not even finish a bag. Yes, I overestimated.

So, every now and then I’ll be looking for ways to use up the remaining 5 lbs of glutinous rice I have in my pantry. And making this kuih is an excellent way to get rid of some. Serimuka is a type of nonya kuih with glutinous rice layer on the bottom and green custard layer on the top. Here’s the Serimuka recipe adapted from Lily. It was surprisingly easy to make with the exception that the surface of my kuih wasn’t the smoothest!! But it was definitely delicious! I should have cut the kuih when it was completely cooled. I just can’t resist to taste it when it was done and cut it when it was still warm. Perhaps my kuih cutting skill was to blame. =P

SERIMUKA RECIPE

Ingredients:

Part A (Rice Layer):

• 300g Glutinous Rice, Wash & soak in water for 4 hrs.
• 180ml Coconut Milk
• 1 Tsp Salt
• 1 Tbsp Sugar

Part B (Egg Custard Layer):

• 3 Large Eggs
• 4 Tbsp Flour
• 4 Tbsp Rice Flour
• 350 Ml Coconut Milk
• 150g Sugar
• 1/2 Tsp Pandan Paste
• 1/4 Tsp Salt
• Green coloring (*Optional)

Method:

Drain rice and steam on 22cm tray for 20 minutes. Remove from heat, fluff up the rice and pour in the coconut milk, sugar and salt. Mix well. Steam for another 20-25 minutes or till cooked. Using a spoon or spatula,press cooked glutinous rice firmly and use another tray to level pressed rice.

Sieve the 2 flours mixture and add them to lightly beaten eggs. Strain mixture. Add coconut milk, pandan paste, green color,salt and sugar. Cook on high in the microwave, 1 min at a time until mixture is slightly thicken.

Pour 1/2 of this egg custard over the steamed glutinous rice and steam for 10 - 15 minutes until cooked. Use a fork and scratch surface, then pour in the balance of the custard, steam further another 10 - 15 minutes until cooked. (Steaming time varies depending on the heat of steamer)
Cut kuih into serving slices when cooled.

June’s Comments: I soaked the rice overnight (about 10 hours). I only steamed the rice for 15 minutes each time. I pressed the rice into a 6 inch pan with removable base. It was easier to remove my “kuih” when it was done.I use Koepoe Koepoe brand pandan paste which is easily found in Asian stores and sells for about $1.50-$2.00 a bottle. I use 1/2 tsp of the paste per Lily’s recipe and thought it might be a little to green for me. I might try to reduce it by a little next time or use real pandan juice?

I cooked the custard mixture over the stove instead of using the microwave. That worked out well. When steaming the custard layer, it took me a longer than 15 minutes maybe because my heat was a little too low. I was afraid that the heat was too high and that would would give me a uneven surface.

I also placed a few pieces of paper towel under my pot cover when steaming the serimuka to prevent the water from the condensation to drop into my kuih.