Ridiculous Oreo Cheesecake

I like when I'm making something and as I am doing so, I start to get the feeling of a mad scientist, or that if the government was watching me create the concoction, I might just get a cease and desist order to stop immediately, it's too much, you can not legally put all that butter, cheese, cream and sweet together. That's how it was when I was making this cheesecake, there I am separating Oreo cookie from stuff, ending up with a pile of stuff, that in a more squeamish bakers kitchen may have went to waste.

Was I going to waste any of that stuff? Of course not, it went right into the cheesecake batter and layered on top of the crust before pouring the batter on the crust (it still blows me away that Oreo still offers a single stuffed cookie, and why have they not come out with triple or 4x stuffed Oreos yet, everyone knows the best part of an oreo is the stuff). I have a few other recipes that I've been meaning to post, but I made this cheesecake this past weekend and needed bump it to the front of the line. The recipe is loosely adapted from this brownie mosaic cheesecake recipe from Deb over at my favorite food blog, Smitten Kitchen. The idea for this cheesecake came from the Oreo ice cream at J.P. Licks, that I never could have too much of, and talked about in my Beantown post. With the Oreo ice cream from J.P. Licks you know you're eating ice cream, but if you closed your eyes you might think you were just eating a pile of Oreos. That's how I wanted this cheesecake to be, you know your were eating cheesecake, but the Oreo-ness of it was cranked up to maximum, and I think I succeeded. Just go out now buy the ingredients for this and make it yourself, it needs to be done.

*A few notes about the recipe. Deb made her cheesecake in a spring form cheesecake pan, I don't have one of those, so I just used a 9 inch circular cake pan. I lined the whole thing with parchment paper and it came out just fine, but I only ended up using about 2/3 of the cheesecake batter. I just poured the excess in a small parchment paper lined square glass baking dish (without any crust), baked it with the standard cake, and just had straight cheesecake (homie), which will be good to mix in with some ice cream, or just to eat straight up. If your going to use the 9 inch cake pan like I did and don't want the excess cheesecake (but who wouldn't) then I would suggest cutting each ingredient down by 2/3, except the ingredients for the crust.

Also about the cooking time. I ended up baking mine for over 60 minutes. Apparently it is hard to tell exactly when a cheesecake is fully cooked, because for the brownie mosaic cheesecake recipe, Deb suggests about 45 minutes, but for some of her other cheesecake recipes she suggests 55-60 minutes. I also was reading some of the comments on her cheesecake recipes and it seemed people trying her recipes were having the biggest problem with the cook time, and not being able to tell when their cheesecakes were done. Since I didn't want an undercooked pudding like mess on my hands, I went for a little overcooked, rather than a little undercooked. She says bake it until the cheesecake is set 3 inches from the edge, but still wobbly in the center (a jello-like wobble, not a liquid-like wobble), I went until the whole cake was just about set, and it didn't burn or dry out and the consistency was still great. I guess what I'm trying to get at is the bake time is just a suggestion, not set in stone, everybody's ovens cook differently, use your best judgement when baking your cheesecake.

Ridiculous Oreo Cheesecake

Adapted from some of Deb's cheesecake recipes at Smitten Kitchen

Makes 1 spring form pan cheesecake or 1 9 inch cake pan cheesecake with some more left over for fun

Crust:

1 package of doublestuffed Oreos, cookies separated from stuff and set in separate bowls

6 tbs of melted butter

1/3 c sugar

1/8 tsp salt

Cheesecake:

3 8 oz packages of cream cheese, softened

4 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

about half of another package of double stuffed Oreos, plus stuff from first package

Chocolate Topping:

1 bar of good quality milk chocolate (I used Lindt)

2 tablespoons butter

For the crust place all of the separated Oreo cookies in a ziploc bag, with a few pieces of the stuff, and pound until finely ground.

In a mixing bowl, mix together the finely ground Oreos, melted butter, sugar and salt.

In the parchment lined cake pan (or greased spring form pan), press the cookie mixture in to the pan to form the crust. Bring it as far up the sides as you are able to, then layer with extra stuff from the separated cookies.

For the cheesecake filling, make sure the cream cheese is very soft (especially if whipping by hand like I did), and whip the cream cheese with the sugar and vanilla, until fully combined. Then add the eggs one at a time, until incorporated.

In a ziploc bag, place about half of the Oreos from a second package. Pound the slightly, just to break them up, then fold them with more of the stuff from the separated cookies used for the crust.

Pour the filling over the crust and bake for 55-60 minutes (see note above for more detailed cooking instructions).

Take cheesecake out of oven and allow to cool for about an hour. After about an hour, cover lightly and allow to set in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours.

When cheesecake is completely cool, melt chocolate over a double boiler and stir in butter. Drizzle over cheesecake and put back in to refrigerator so chocolate re-hardens.

Eat well, Live well

Salmon cakes with Grilled Corn Salad

I've had this can of salmon sitting in the cupboard, for about the last month or two. I bought it intending to use it to make "polar bear fish biscuit treats" for the awesome Lost finale party I threw, but since I wasn't exactly sure how canned salmon tastes it the fish biscuits were on the bottom of my list of things to make, and I ended not having enough time to make them, thus the canned salmon collected dust in the cupboard. I wasn't exactly sure what to do with it, and thought to myself that I make crab cakes somewhat frequently, and I don't use the most choice crab meat for them (I'm a poor pharmacy student mind you), so I figured why not try make salmon cakes with the canned salmon. That's exactly what I did, and they turned out rather tasty if I do say so myself. I was a bit startled at first, when I opened and drained the can of salmon, then dumped it into a bowl, to find a bunch of bones in the salmon meat. I didn't let it turn me off though, a lesser man might have just thrown the canned salmon away and bought some fresh salmon filets from the grocery, but I was determined to make it work. So I diligently picked all of the big bones out and as many of the small, what I think were rib bones out as I could and continued on. I mixed the salmon with most everything I would to make crab cakes, except the old bay, grilled them up, stuck them on a roll topped with a slice of swiss cheese, and some avocado slices, had the grilled corn salad as my side (which was really, really good, definitely try it) and thoroughly enjoyed the creation I made.

Salmon Cakes

3-4 burger sized cakes

1 12 oz can of salmon (I'm not actually sure of the size of the can but the store I was in had two sizes of cans and I got the smaller can)

1 lemon

2 tbsp mayonnaise

1/2 cup panko bread crumbs

1/2 medium sweet onion, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 egg

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

a few dashes of hot sauce (I used sriracha)

salt and pepper

2-3 slices of bacon, cooked and cut into small stips

3- 4 slices of swiss (if making sandwiches)

1 avocado, sliced

1 lime

Open and drain the can of salmon, dump into a bowl, and pick out as many bones as you can. I'm not sure if all canned salmon has bones, so maybe look for a can that is boneless at the store, if not it really was a big deal to pick them out, I definitely didn't feel any in the cakes.

Mix the juice from the lemon, mayo, onion, garlic, egg, cayenne, hot sauce, and panko, in a bowl then with the salmon.

Form 3-4 patties with the mixture, cover and refrigerate for at least a half hour, and I would imagine you could do it overnight, to allow the cakes to firm up.

Bring the grill up to medium high heat, prior to cooking the salmon cakes.

Brush each side of the cakes with a little bit of oil and since the salmon is already cooked, just grill the cakes for about 3-4 minutes a side or until nice grill marks form.

*For the bacon preheat an oven to 325 degrees F and cook bacon for about 20-25 minutes until its to the crispness that you prefer.

**For the avocado slices, just mix the juice of the lime with a little bit of salt and mix with the avocado slices right after you slice it, so they don't turn that gross dark green/brown.

Grilled Corn Salad

5-6 servings

5 cobs of corn, with the husks on

1 orange pepper, diced (really any color pepper will do)

1 small red onion, diced

1 cucumber diced

1 small can of black beans

1 tomato, seeded and diced

Dressing:

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

juice from 2 lemons

salt and pepper

Open the corn husks and brush cobs with olive oil, salt and pepper. Grill over medium heat for about twenty minutes, turning the corn occaisionally.

Cut the corn of the cob and combine with the other vegetables and the beans.

In a separate bowl combine all ingredients for the dressing, then toss with the salad. Allow to chill in the refrigerator and serve cool.

Eat well, Live well

Beantown

Another great trip to Boston. I took the megabus from New York to Boston, which seems like the best deal ever, it was only $13 and only took about four hours. I'm not sure whether or not the best part of my time there was the Dead Weather concert we went to, or the pizza I ate at Figs (this was some serious pizza, possibly the best I've ever had).

Figs was opened by famed chef Todd English, after eating at this restaurant I can see why he is such a recognized chef, this guy knows his way around a pizza, that's for sure. I know I said last time I was in Boston that I wouldn't go back again without eating at The Chart House, but when I say that I couldn't go back to Boston without eating at Figs, I mean it, this pizza was ridiculously good, if there is one thing that you could eat in Boston this should be it. We ordered two pizzas, one of them we got half bianco (mozzarella, sweet onions, vine ripe tomatoes, arugula, extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar; good but a little hard to eat with the arugula on top) and half crispy eggplant (tomato sauce, sliced eggplant, mozzarella, whipped ricotta and torn basil; unbelievable, a must get if your eating at Figs). The second pizza we got was half portobello (portobello mushrooms, wild mushroom puree, roasted red onions, fontina cheese and truffle oil; one of the best food items I've ever eaten, just ridiculously good) and half spicy shrimp (spicy gulf shrimp with caramelized leeks and tomato sauce; really good just not spicy, I even put some red pepper seeds on it and still didn't think there was a spiciness to it, my sister and I both thought there was almost a sweetness to it).

Other food highlights on this Boston excursion were Indian food at Punjab Palace, I'm not that familiar with Indian cuisine, but my sister's boyfriend is and this is one of his favorite Indian places to eat. I thought my meal was great, I had the lamb masala and enjoyed it thoroughly.

One of the nights we decided to stay in for dinner, my sister made portobello mushroom burgers with roasted red peppers and bread from Clear Flour Bakery, and I made some roasted vegetables (an eggplant, squash, zucchini, sweet onion and red potatoes) that we picked up at a farmers market. The meal turned out really well, my sisters sandwiches were great, and we all thought my vegetables were really good as well.

Of course we had our share of desserts as well, even with all the great bakeries and pastry shops they have in that city, my favorite dessert may just be the oreo ice cream at J.P. Licks. I don't know how they do it, but it tastes like your eating a cone full of oreos, its kind of ridiculous. It is brown in color like it would be a chocolate ice cream base, with flecks of oreo and cream throughout it, but there really isn't a chocolateness to it, it is just a pure oreo flavor. I've had my fair share of cookies and cream ice creams, and other oreo based ice creams, but this oreo ice cream from J.P Licks is so far above anything I've ever had, I love it. We also stopped at Flour Bakery, for lunch one of the days. I had a slice of Boston cream pie which was really good, apparently this bakery is know for their sticky buns, and even won a Throwdown against Bobby Flay, but I guess they sell out of them really fast, and we didn't make it in time to get to try one. Another dessert we had that was a really good concept, but not executed as well as I thought it could have been, was a cake panini we had at Finale, in Brookline. It was two pieces of cake with your choice of fillings in the middle. I had nutella, bananas and grilled pineapple. It was good but could have been a lot better, the pieces of cake we thought we grilled a little to much, so that they were kind of crunchy and not really cake like anymore. We thought the slices of cake should have been thicker and not grilled so much, so that they would have a crispiness on the outside, but still be cake like in the middle. Overall, I had five days in Boston, and ate some of the best food I've ever had, I definitely had a great time there, this time around.

As for the non-food related things I did, it was so hard, it was kind of hard to be out and walking around all day. I would take two steps and instantly be a sweaty mess (I know, I'm gross), so there wasn't much exploring, but I did have a great time hanging out with my sister's boyfriend and some of his friends, while my sister was working, and of course I had fun with my sis when she was off. The best part of this trip was definitely the Dead Weather concert we went to. They played at the House of Blues, and completely rocked. I knew Jack White was going to be awesome (which he was), but their lead singer Alison Mosshart, was what surprised me. She had such a stage presence and energy, that if you weren't in to this band you would have still enjoyed the concert, she was all over the stage, dancing and just absolutely bringing it. While I do think this is the worst of Jack White's three bands, after this concert it certainly isn't by much. I've already scene the Raconteurs, so now hopefully Jack and Meg can reunite for at least one more album, so I get the chance to see the White Stripes live (definitely the best of Jack White's bands).

Finally, Friday night we saw Inception, the new Christopher Nolan movie. I have to say it was a bit underwhelming. With all the hype it's been getting, I don't think there's been one bad review for it, I felt like it wasn't as good as I was expecting. Don't get me wrong, I did think it was good, the acting, special effects and action sequences were all superb, but just not on the same level as Memento or The Prestige. Those two movies were kind of mind-bending, "what just happened", need to watch multiple times kind of movies. Inception just didn't have nearly the depth of either of Nolan's previous movies, I would say it was just a really good summer blockbuster, nothing more nothing less.

Boston was a blast, and it's weird to think that at this time next year, my sister will be graduated and possibly not even living in Boston anymore.

Eat well, Live well