Savory Cheesecake

I went a little bit crazy and decided to make a savory cheesecake. Because sweet cheesecakes are so mainstream, right? :-)= I was inspired by our favorite party food - the guacamole. It was difficult to pick the right cheese for this because I was afraid nothing would survive slicing.
The cheese held it all together well but what I had a problem with, however, was the crust. I applied a similar technique I use with normal cheesecakes but this time I didn't bake it because it seemed a little bit too much. Needless to say I should have baked it. I'm not saying it all crumbled but some parts did and it wasn't as fancy as I wanted it to be.

Ingredients:

• 200g your favorite tortilla chips (I'm a sucker for the cheese ones - I bet that is the most toxic flavor but I can't help it)
• 50g butter 

• 300g gervais 
• 3 ripe avocados
• 1 small onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• about 1 table spoon lemon juice
• salt, pepper

•  the top is up to you - just put on whatever you miss inside (cilantro, tomato, chilli pepper or you can even smear it with your favorite dip - either home made or store bought, who cares?!)

1) Line your cake pan with something (baking paper, aluminum foil etc.) so that it's easier to take it out later. 

2) Crush the chips and combine them with melted butter. Press to the bottom of the pan.

3) Using a blender, combine everything in the cheesecake part till smooth. You can add something else inside, if you wish, just don't make it more runny (so avoid tomatoes at this point) because I fear it would not harden enough.

4) Pour over the chips layer and smooth the surface. Wrap the whole thing in a foil so that it doesn't oxygenate much (the top would be too brown if you didn't cover it) and leave in a fridge for at least five hours. 

5) Prepare whatever you miss in it and decorate the cake with it.

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

Even I couldn't resist the trend of reducing the carb intake so I decided to make the healthier version of pizza.
I must admit I was quite skeptic because I didn't believe it would hold together but it did! Also, taste-wise it wasn't bad either. As in most meals, the seasoning does the job so it really doesn't matter what you make it from as long as you know how to combine the herbs. Our tongues can be easily fooled.
This pizza is yummy but nothing beats real pizza, don't get your hopes up. On the other hand, this one will give you the "I've done something for myself today" feeling.

Ingredients:

• one cauliflower head 
• 150g mozarella
• about 80g grana padano
• 2 table spoons pizza seasoning (if you can't find that, just use rosemary, basil, thyme, salt, dry garlic and onion, pepper and stuff like that)
• 1 egg

• the topping is up to you (I used tomato puree, more grana padano and mozarella, and for the meat eaters in may family I added some salami on one half of the pizza)

1) Put the cauliflower in a food processor and blend it. Then put it for 4 minutes into a microwave. Spill it onto a tea towel, wait a little for it to cool down, and squeeze real hard - keep squeezing till no water comes out.

2) Shred the cheeses and put them in a bowl. Add the cauliflower, egg and seasoning and combine. 

3) Make a pizza crust shape on a baking tray (lined with baking paper), try to spread it evenly and bake at 200°C for about 10 minutes (when it starts getting brown color, it's time to get it out).

4) Top it with whatever you want and return it in the oven for about 7 minutes (or until everything on the top melts nicely).

Thyme Focaccia Spinach Burgers

These "burgers" look complicated but are actually very easy to make and they are definitely a nice break from all that meat. 

One will fill you up for hours, so don't think that just because it's green it's something less (my meat-eating family upon seeing them: "eh, we have some beef burgers in the freezer, should we add it in the bun?" --> after eating one half of the bun: "thank goodness you forbade us to defrost those burgers, we are stuffed!").

Ingredients:

Focaccia

• 42g yeast (I use the cube, not the dry one)
• 500ml warm water
• 500g flour (I had mercy and used plain)
• 4 table spoons dry thyme 
• olive oil to smear the buns with
• sea salt to sprinkle it with

Pesto

• 150g fresh chives
• 50g parmesan 
• 50g sunflower seeds
• 100 ml olive oil
• salt, pepper

Burger

• 400g spinach leaves
• 200g ricotta
• 150g mozzarella 
• 3 eggs
• salt, pepper
• oil for frying

1) Let's make the buns first. Mix the yeast with water and when the yeast dissolves into it, start adding the flour and thyme. Incorporate well and let it sit in some dark warm spot for about an hour.

2) When the dough is ready, wash your hands so that the water is still on them and divide your dough in four parts, make them look as closely to buns as possible and put them on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Smear the buns with olive oil and sprinkle some salt on top. Bake at 250°C till they are nice golden-brown. Or you can use the toothpick technique here. 

3) For the pesto you will need to roast the seeds first - take your frying pan, heat it up and roast the seeds on it (no oil needed!) or put it on a baking tray and put it in the oven for a while if you are still baking your buns at this point. When the seeds start to get brown from both sides, take them out and let them cool down a little. 

4) Add the seeds to the rest of the ingredients for the pesto and either pulse it in the blender or use your hand blender to make it. It's kinda curd-y but all should be blended - no big pieces of anything allowed!

5) The last thing to do is the burger. Take the leaves, put them in hot salty water till they shrink. Then get rid of the water (wait for it to cool down and squeeze them). 

6) Chop mozzarella to small pieces and mix all the burger ingredients together. Divide into four portions and put them in your frying pan with a little bit of oil. Fry from both sides to get brownish tint and then put them in the oven for next 10 minutes to bake them through. 

7) When everything has cooled down, you can assembly the stuff- cut the focaccia in half, smear it with a thin layer of pesto, put in the burger and some veggies and you are done!   

Tuna and Ricotta Patties

This is one of the go-to recipes when I buy ricotta cheese. Everyone in my family loves them and they are super easy to make. And if you add some vegetable salad and sour-cream-based dip, you will be buying that cheese very often.

You'll need (20 small patties):

• 200g canned tuna
• 200g ricotta 
• 1 egg
• salt, dry basil, thyme, and rosemary (I know, I know, I use these way too much but I love them!) and if you have some fresh herbs like chives or parsley, chop them in as well
• about two handfuls of breadcrumbs (you will have to experiment - you need just enough to make the patties not sticky but not too dry either)

1) Mix it all together till it creates nice not so sticky structure.

2) Roll into balls and then squeeze them so that you get this desired patty shape.

3) Either put them in the oven or onto a frying pan - in both cases you will need only a couple of drops of olive oil to bake/fry them on. 

4) In the oven they are done in about 15 minutes, on the pan they are ready once both sides get the nice brown color. 

Spinach Pancakes

For some reason I do not fancy sweet pancakes. Somehow the batter doesn't work for me. But fill it with spinach and I'm satisfied. 

Pancake batter (5 pancakes):

• 300ml milk
• 3 eggs
• 150g flour
• a pinch of salt

Pancake filling:

• 300g frozen spinach (doesn't matter if it's leaf or chopped)
• 1 small onion
• 5 cloves of garlic 
• some oil
• salt, pepper or any other spice of choice
• 100g greek yoghurt 
• plus some cheese (I chose parmesan) for the topping

1) Heat up your frying pan and start pouring your pancakes on it. I manage to make 5 from this much. I use non-stick pan but if you don't have it, make sure you butter it before pouring your pancake in.

2) Preheat your oven to 200°C.

3) In a different pan heat up the oil and add chopped onion and garlic. When it starts to get golden color, add your frozen spinach and wait for it to melt. Stir it every once in a while. When it's done, lower the temperature and stir in the yoghurt and add as much salt and pepper as you like. 

4) Prepare your baking pan - grease it with either butter or olive oil. 

5) Take one pancake and spread one fifth of the spinach on it. Roll it and put it in your baking pan. Repeat till all the pancakes are in there. 

6) Cover it with as much cheese as you like. 

7) Bake it till it starts getting brown at the edges. (15-20 minutes)

Quinoa and red lentil cheese balls

I am tired of always eating salads or veggie/fruit smoothies for supper. Every once in a while I need something different to bite into without the guilt of consuming something not healthy enough. These days it’s all about quinoa and other “superfoods”. So, the stuff I did with quinoa (apart form using it as a regular side dish) is finally here.

You are going to need:

• ½ cup red lentil

• ½ cup quinoa

• cheese (I used mozzarella and Balkan)

• 1-2 tablespoon tomato puree

• dry basil, garlic, thyme and rosemary

• plus your regular salad stuff, that is optional (tomatoes, peppers, oil, balsamico etc.)

1) Boil quinoa and red lentil – you can do them together because they get ready at the same time so you will save yourself some dishes.

2) Meanwhile, you can prepare your cheese- cut it into small squares or any shapes you want, it just must be small.

3) Once the quinoa/lentil mix has cooled down a bit, you can add a tablespoon of tomato puree and the herbs. This is up to you; everyone likes it a bit different, so add as much as you want. Since I used balkan cheese, I avoided salt but if you are one of those salt eaters, add it there as well.

4) Take a big spoonful of the mix, roll it into a ball and then press one piece of the cheese inside. Roll it in your hands again so that the cheese isn’t sticking out anywhere.

5) Put all your balls onto a baking tray and bake them at about 200°C for 20 minutes.

6) They go well with a salad, so take your veggies and make it while the balls are baking. I added the leftover cheese into the salad as well.

7) Eat them hot or cold – both ways are delicious.