Coconut Cheesecake Tart

Sometime in November, my daughter asked me what I wanted for Christmas. She had taken it upon her sweet little 8-year-old self to write letters to Santa on behalf of everyone in the family. I thought about it and told her I would like a tart pan with a removable bottom. I had watched a cooking show where the host made pecan pie in a tart pan and was able to slice and serve the pie easily and beautifully. It looked like a great idea and something that I would actually use. So she wrote this letter to Santa: "Dear Santa, I was good today and I would like a tart pan with a removable bottom. Stephanie." So cute, right?

So I was pleased, but not surprised, to find this lovely fluted tart pan under the tree on Christmas morning.

And yesterday the kids and I mixed up this delicious tart, with a cookie pastry, a cream cheese and coconut filling, and a toasted coconut topping.

Coconut Cheesecake Tart
Tart:
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup butter
2 tbsp. packed brown sugar
1 large egg
Filling:
2 cups shredded coconut
8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
8 oz. whipped topping
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

For the crust, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine crust ingredients until a dough is formed. Press onto bottom and about an inch up the sides of ungreased 9-inch fluted tart pan. Bake for 12 minutes.

While the crust is baking, spread coconut in a thin layer on a large baking sheet. Toast in the same oven as the crust, stirring every 3-4 minutes, until most of the coconut is golden brown. Set aside.

Once the crust and the coconut are cool, make the filling. Beat cream cheese until smooth, mix in sugar and vanilla. Add whipped topping and mix well. Stir in toasted coconut, reserving 1/2 cup for topping.

Spoon filling into crust, spread evenly. Sprinkle coconut evenly over filling. Remove sides from tart pan, then slide tart off the bottom of the tart pan onto serving dish. Chill until ready to serve.

I gotta say, slicing and serving this delicious tart was a dream! No digging around in the pie pan trying to fish out the first slice without tearing it apart. All I had to do was lift each slice right off the cake stand. It was a beautiful thing.

Linking:
Think Tank Thursday at Joyful Homemaking
Wowza Weekend Link Party at My Love 2 Create
Link Party Palooza at tatertots & jello
Strut Your Stuff Saturday Link Party at Sis Sisters' Stuff
Project Inspire{d} at An Extraordinary Day 

My Kitchen My World - Dessert

December's assignment on My Kitchen My World was a little different than usual. Normally we make a dish from a specific country each month. This month though, we could choose any holiday dessert from any country.

I chose to make a Jewish dish that is common in many European countries, called Noodle Kugel. It is a traditional dish for Sabbath and for festive holidays. This particular version is from Russia, I found it under the title of Russian Noodle Pudding.

Kugel isn't as sweet as I usually prefer for desserts. That's understandable considering that it's commonly used as a side dish as well as a dessert. It has a tartness from the cottage cheese and sour cream that melds nicely with the small amount of sugar and vanilla. My kids would definitely have enjoyed this more if it were topped with some maple syrup and whipped cream, but I actually liked it as is.

Noodle Kugel
16 oz. pasta, cooked and drained
24 oz. cottage cheese
2 cups sour cream
2 eggs
7 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 graham cracker sheets
2 tbsp. brown sugar
dash cinnamon
dash nutmeg
3 tbsp. butter

Heat oven to 350, butter a large baking dish.

Combine cottage cheese, sour cream, eggs, sugar, and vanilla. Mix well. Stir in pasta. Spread into buttered baking dish.

Crush graham crackers, add brown sugar and spices. Sprinkle over pasta mixture. Dot with butter.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Serve warm or chilled.

I do wish I hadn't made such a large pan of this. It's yummy, but since the kids aren't huge fans I'm worried we might not eat it all fast enough. I wonder if it freezes well?

And here's an update on the kitchen. The last time I posted, it was an absolute mess of renovation horror. Well, here is what it looks like now. Much better! We're putting the renovation on hold for the winter, and will eventually put in the final touches like back splash, base boards, and the remaining cabinet doors in a few months. In the meantime, it's so nice to have it functioning and looking decent!

Linking:
Project Inspire{d} at Dukes and Duchesses
Think Tank Thursday at Joyful Homemaking
Wowza Weekend Link Party at My Love 2 Create
Link Party Palooza at tatertots & jello 
Strut Your Stuff Saturday Link Party at Six Sisters' Stuff

My Kitchen My World - Tonga

I wanted to participate in My Kitchen My World last month - I pinned several recipes from Great Britain that looked fun and yummy. But last month we started renovating our kitchen, and it just didn't happen. Go figure - remove the kitchen sink, counters, cabinets, and any semblance of a working kitchen, and suddenly I don't feel like making fancy foreign foods.

But even though we've been working on this kitchen renovation for about a month now and it still looks awful, I just had to participate this month. Tonga was my choice of country to visit in October. Torn-up kitchen or no, I had to make a delicious Tongan meal to share!

I chose Tonga as this month's MKMW destination because we have a lot of Tongan friends and church acquaintances in our neighborhood. I have grown to love the Polynesian culture, including and especially the food!

In Tonga, a common traditional cooking method is an underground earthen oven, called an umu. A common meal is meat and coconut, and sometimes vegetables, wrapped in taro leaves and baked in the umu. The taro leaves are called lu. The main dish I chose to make is called lu pulu, which is lu with beef.

The recipe I used is from the family of John Groberg. He is sort of famous in the Mormon church for serving a mission in Tonga in the 1950's, and writing about his experiences (a movie was even made about it). This is a simplified, Americanized version of lu pulu, using spinach and aluminum foil in place of taro leaves. The recipe also calls for mayonnaise, but I chose to use cream of coconut instead, as being closer to tradition.

Lu Pulu
3 bunches spinach, washed, drained, and stemmed
1 12-oz can corned beef
1 onion, chopped
1 tomato, chopped (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
5 tbsp cream of coconut (found in the drink mixer section of grocery stores, use mayonnaise instead if you prefer)
19-inch sheet of aluminum foil

Fold foil in half and lay flat. Lay spinach leaves over it, then top with chopped corned beef, onion, tomato, and salt and pepper. Spread with cream of coconut or mayonnaise. Gather edges of foil up and twist at the top to make a tight package. Place in a baking pan. Bake at 350 for 1 hour.

Open foil, mix the ingredients a little, and serve over sweet potatoes, which can be baked in the same oven.

This stuff is pretty yummy! It was very simple to make. Except for opening the can of corned beef. For some reason, my can didn't come with the little key to open it. I had to grab the tab with a vice grip I had lying around, and try to wrench it open. That worked for about half the can, then it broke off. Then I tried to use my super strong kitchen shears to cut the can open the rest of the way. I'm lucky I still have all my fingers! Eventually I just embraced the half-openness of the can and painstakingly scooped the meat out with a spoon.

Anyway, moving on! A popular drink in Tonga is called something called otai. It is typically made up of watermelon pulp and coconut milk. Other fruits are sometimes added to it. When I went to buy ingredients for this meal, I quickly was reminded that watermelon is not in season! I got a small plastic container of watermelon and supplemented with crushed pineapple. Usually otai should be much more pink than this! This recipe made a very chunky drink - we ate it as much as we drank it. But it was still quite yummy! Next time I would probably pull out the blender and give it a whirl.

Otai
3 cups grated watermelon
1 can crushed pineapple (do not drain)
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup cream of coconut (this wasn't in the recipe I used, but I figured I had already opened the can for the lu pulu and I might as well add it to the otai)
1 can evaporated milk
2 cans of water (use the evaporated milk can)
Juice of 1/2 lime

Combine all ingredients in pitcher or large bowl. Process in blender if desired. Chill before serving.

As a little bonus, here is a picture of what my kitchen looked like when I made this meal. Yeah, it's scary.

And if anyone is interested, you can visit my other blog to read about our kitchen remodel.

Creme de Menthe Brownies

Mint and chocolate - a match made in heaven. Jeff bought some creme de menthe baking chips recently, just for fun. They're basically chopped up Andes bars. Both of us knew right away that they would be delicious baked into some rich, chocolatey brownies.

Andes and brownies, you can't go wrong.

Creme de Menthe Brownies
(adapted from Hershey's)
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, melted
2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/3 cup flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cup Andes Creme de Menthe baking chips

Heat oven to 350. Grease 9x13 pan.

Beat eggs in large bowl until foamy; gradually beat in sugar. Add butter and vanilla; beat until blended. Stir together flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt; add to egg mixture, beating until blended. Stir in baking chips. Spread batter into prepared pan.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into squares.

Linking to: Link Party Palooza at tatertots & jello
Project Inspire{d} at Dukes and Duchesses 
Think Tank Thursday at Joyful Homemaking

My Kitchen My World - Sweden

Cutting it close this month! But the last day of August still counts. :)

This month for My Kitchen My World we visited the cuisine of Sweden. I didn't want to do Swedish meatballs, they're too well-known around here to be considered a challenge. Instead, I found a dish called Kroppkakor, or potato dumplings. They turned out so delicious. I don't think I added nearly enough flour to the dough, which made it extremely messy to work with, but at least it tasted good!

Swedish Kroppkakor
10 medium potatoes, peeled, boiled, and cooled
1 egg
1 1/4 cup flour, or enough to make a soft dough
8 oz. bacon, diced
1 small onion, diced
1 tsp. ground allspice

Mash potatoes. Mix in egg and flour to make soft dough, set aside.

Fry bacon and onion until bacon is crispy and onion is soft. Add allspice. I just want to note that this mixture smells absolutely incredible!

Flatten pieces of dough into rounds. Top with 1-2 tsp. bacon mixture, then close the dough around the filling and form a ball.

Drop dumplings into simmering salted water, 4 or 5 at a time. Cook for about 5 minutes (another recipe said 15 minutes, we did somewhere in between).

Serve with bechamel sauce (basic white sauce) or melted butter, and lingonsylt (lingonberry jam). We didn't have lingonberry jam, so I had Jeff make some cranberry sauce instead.

With the potatoes, and the allspice, and the cranberry sauce, this stuff tasted like Thanksgiving! It totally put me in a fall mood. Jeff and I each had several dumplings, my 3-yr-old and 1-yr-old each devoured two, and my two older kids were only able to tolerate one after I put ketchup on it.

One recipe I found says that leftover dumplings are good cut up and fried crispy the next morning. I know what we're having for breakfast tomorrow! :)


*Update: We chopped up the leftovers and fried them in bacon grease. They turned out quite yummy.

Lemon Bar Muddy Buddies

I normally post my Iron Craft projects on my other blog, Pursuit of Craft. But this one is a recipe, so here it is!

The Iron Craft challenge was to create something to do with picnics. I recently found a recipe for Lemon Bar Muddy Buddies, which got me so excited. They taste like lemon bars, but in the form of fun little bite-sized snacks. Toss a batch of these in a lunch basket with some sandwiches and water bottles and you've got the makings of a great picnic!

Lemon Bar Muddy Buddies
(from Lemon Tree Dwelling)
8 c. Rice Chex cereal (generic works fine!) 
1 c. white chocolate chips 
1/2 c. lemon curd 
1/4 c. butter 
1 1/2 c. powdered sugar

Melt white chocolate chips and butter in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly. (The melting won't be smooth - don't worry!)

Once melted, remove from heat and stir in lemon curd until smooth. Pour Rice Chex into a large paper bag (grocery size) and pour lemon mixture over cereal. Fold the bag to seal and shake to coat cereal. 

Add powdered sugar to paper bag and shake once more to coat.

Spread out on cookie sheet to cool; once completely cool, store at room temperature in airtight containers.

Yummy!

Linking to:
Think Tank Thursday at Joyful Homemaking
Weekend Wrap-Up Party at tatertots & jello 

My Kitchen My World - Cuban Pork with Black Beans and Rice

After a very long absence, I am once again contributing my culinary offering to My Kitchen My World. The country for June was Cuba. So I hopped onto Allrecipes.com and found some delicious Cuban recipes.

Cuban Pork
(adapted from Allrecipes.com)
1 1/2 lb. pork loin roast, cut into 5 or 6 thick slices
1 lime, zested and juiced
2 tsp. olive oil
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. salt
1 pinch crushed red pepper
1 tsp. minced garlic

In a bowl, mix together the lime zest, olive oil, cumin, salt, crushed red pepper, and garlic. Reserve the lime juice. Rub the seasoning mixture onto both sides of the pork slices.

Spray a heavy skillet or ridged grill pan with cooking spray, and place over medium heat. Pan-fry the pork slices until browned on both sides, 6 to 7 minutes per side. After you turn the meat over, pour the reserved lime juice over the meat and continue cooking until no longer pink in the center. Serve hot, topped with pan juices.

This pork is just bursting with lime flavor, and it paired really well with some plain rice and some delicious black beans.

Cuban Black Beans
(Adapted from Allrecipes.com)
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
4 tsp. minced garlic
3 cans black beans, not drained
1/2 can tomato sauce
4 oz. roasted red pepper, chopped
1 tbsp. vinegar
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. black pepper

Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat, and saute onion, green bell pepper, and garlic until tender.

Into the onion mixture, stir the beans, tomato sauce, red pepper, and vinegar. Season with salt, sugar, and pepper. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

Ahh, feels good to be back. I really am going to try to post recipes more frequently, I've really slacked off the past few...um...years.... 

Linked to:
Weekend Wrap-Up Party at tatertots&jello 
Think Tank Thursday at Joyful Homemaking 
Project Inspire{d} at Dukes and Duchesses