Here's something I made earlier!

Lemon and Ginger Cheesecake!



My, what a gorgeous draining board I have! It really brings out the lemon in this picture, don't you think? Ya? Gorgeous hun.

And because I mentioned it in the 'Putting Faces To The Names...' thread, here it is in it's full glory!



This draining board has seen it all you know! From knives and forks to plates and bowls to casserole dishes! There's nothing this draining board can't take! It's made of steel!!!! (literally!) YEAH HARDCORE MATE I'M TELLING YOU!

That's great Banker, I'm really pleased for you.

Ingredients

So here are the ingredients you will need. I don’t know the quantities because I’m a rotten amateur who just bungs it all in and hopes for the best. So bare with me or bugger off.

1 packet of McVitie’s Ginger nuts. I bought two just incase, and because they were on offer, but one will suffice. And they don’t necessarily have to be McVitie’s either, a supermarket’s own brand will do. Or if you're really hard up even an economy one will be fine. Unless of course you're a posh snob who has a trust fund from daddy and gets all their food locally and orangic, so wouldn't even consider buying a packet of pissy biscuits for less than 10p.
Butter
Mascarpone (put a mask on a pony!)
Double cream
Caster sugar (I forgot to include that in the picture aha oops!)
1 Lemon

Method (making it up as I go along basically)

Step 1: Open the packet of ginger nuts and put the biscuits into a sandwich bag with no holes in. Take a rolling pin and whack the biscuits to smithereens until they turn into crumbs. Be careful not to split the bag because that would be really silly.

Step 2: Rub some butter on the base and around the sides of a cake tin so that the cheesecake won’t stick to the tin when you try to take it out. Sod's law it probably will anyway. Melt some butter in a saucepan on the hob and mix with the crumbs.

Step 3: Cover the base of the cake tin with the crumbs and squash it down so it’s...squashed. Then leave it in the fridge to set.

Step 4: Whip the double cream with a whisk until your arms drop off, literally. If you’re clumsy like me you’d be best to use a manual whisk because an electric one can have a mind of its own! But if you do choose to use an electric one then please hold the bowl down firmly as you whisk away, or otherwise it will end up on the floor and there'll be a mess everywhere. Don’t make me say "I told you so!" Then add the mascarpone and caster sugar and stir it all in until you've dislocated your wrist and have to have it amputated and shredded. Then compressed. Then thrown into an industrial incinerator. Then recycled.

Step 5: Cut the lemon in half and using a lemon squeezer squeeze all of the juice out of the lemon. Easy peasy - lemon squeezy! Seperate the pips from the juice because a) what sort of crappy person leaves pips in? and b) the last thing you want is to have to perform the Heimlich Maneuver on a member of your family. Keep hold of the lemon rind for garnishing later on.

Step 6: Pour the lemon juice into the mixture and give it a good stir. Have a taste to make sure it’s not too sweet or too sour. If your face looks like it could win a gurning competition then it means you've put too much lemon juice in - you dopey git. Whack in some more sugar to balanced it out. Use your initiative to add more sugar and/or lemon juice if you feel it needs it and adjust to your own preference.

Step 7: When it’s as perfect as your pretty porcelain face, take the biscuit base out of the fridge (should have set by now) and put the cream mixture on top. Spread it out until it’s all smooth and lovely, like a baby’s bottom. Unfortunately the same can’t be said about your bum because it’s all hairy and disgusting.

Step 8: Grate some lemon rind over the top to complete. Put the cheesecake in the fridge and chill for a couple of hours before serving.

And ta-da! Your cheesecake awaits!



Why does all my food come out looking rubbishy? Well it looked nicer in real life.

Serves: The entire neighbourhood.
Fat content: 52515141 grams.
Kcals: 4545415415151.
Nutritional value: Zero. OK, maybe some Vitamin C because of the lemon but don't let that put you off, this cheesecake is seriously fatty and bad for you. Still, stock up now and you can hibernate come autumn!

Enjoy your dessert! I spat in it because I'm an obnoxious little *beep*!

No I am an angel really.

Ironically, I was looking for a simple cheesecake recipe the other day but never got around to it, so thanks for bringing google to me! Sexy draining board!

I love how you still have the same crappy phone camera all these years later! Haha, no it doesn't look too bad. The photo for my recipe coming up makes it look like a pile of *beep* haha!

I will attempt to make a similar cheesecake inspired by this and we'll see how it goes.

Chinese Takeaway Style Curry Sauce
2 tbsp Plain Flour
2 tbsp Vegetable Oil
2 tsp Medium Curry Powder
Small Amount of Garlic (either a clove or a few tsp garlic powder)
3 tsp Chilli Powder
2 tsp Chinese Five Spice
400ml Beef Stock (boiling water)

Put the flour and the curry powder in a bowl and mix together.

Heat oil in a saucepan with garlic and chinese five spice.

Remove from heat and add the curry and plain flour and mix.

Put back onto the heat and add a small amount of the beef stock until it forms a paste. Add Chilli Powder.

Continually adding Beef stock a little at a time. Continue heating until you form a lumpless sauce.

Advise you to cook a few hours in advance if you're using it for chicken curry, leave it to cool down and then slowly stir it into the chicken when it's cooked.

Here's my version of Banker's cheesecake recipe. I used the same method template for the cheesecake so there's no need for me to write it up. However, I will use an adapted version when I write it up for my blog as I don't want to be copyrighting!

I'll call my version a citrus cheesecake as I used limes in addition to lemons. Here are some photos.

These are my ingredients. I also forgot to photograph the caster sugar because it was the only thing I didn't need to buy so it was in the cupboard. I used lemon extract to give it a different taste as well as fresh lemon. Food colouring was also used. I bought cheap biscuits because I'm a cheap skate.


He's a picture of my draining board. It's not as good as Banker's but it is probably about 20 years old now and it has a sag in the middle. Perhaps steel is not steel!


I also didn't have a bag without holes. So I started doing this...


But it ended up failing so I used a binbag instead at least it wasn't used!


After all my pictures usually make the food look like *beep*, I decided that I was going to make an extra special effort to make it look good, which meant taking the finished job outside and taking about a million photos, and creating a centre piece made from left overs of the two citrus fruits I used.


Here is my actual portion. The image is semi-blurred.


It took me a while to get the balance right... Well, actually it didn't but I just wanted to eat loads of the cheesecake mousse bit!

Your cheesecake looks a lot better than mine did!

I love your flowery plate, very er...grannyish!

LOL at the random blackberries!

Oi those are damn good plates I'll have you know! Mum got them from a carboot sale quite a few years ago now because we couldn't afford brand new plates but yes, they are very floral and not to any of our tastes

I was walking back from Tesco (as that's where I shop because it's like sooooooooo much cooler than Sainsbury's) and this old couple were picking blackberries in the rural path I walk back on, so I thought I should join in! However I tripped over into the bush and got scratches all up my arm and those blackberries were very sharp, so it wasn't worth it!

And thanks, mine is probably about 20 times more unhealthy seeing as I used a whole block of butter for the biscuits!

Nah I'm just kidding, floral plates rock!

You used a whole block of butter?! I know I said I didn’t know the quantities but that’s taking the biscuit! (no pun intended!)

Recipe time!!

Chicken Tikka Masalalalalalala

This is a pretty basic, bog standard, run of the mill, average, middle of the road, simple recipe to do. Hence I did it because I have the ability to improve on it because I can turn an average recipe to an even more average recipe! The thing that isn't average is (Oh shut up cookie before I put tikka paste in your eye)

This is my 'cultural' recipe so far. When I say cultural, it's not really that cultural but curry is as cultural as I'm going so shove that in your pipe innit.

Ingredients:
3 or 4 breast fillets from a chicken depending on how much your family gorge.
100ml Double cream
A can of chopped tomatoes
6 table spoons of tikka paste
1 onion
100g Rice or two packets of Uncle Ben's if you're lazy like me.
optional: Curry powder to make it nice and HOT.

Method:

Get a fork and pierce the compartments that contain the curry and the rice. Pop in the microwave for 4 minutes and then Oops, I started writing about the method for the dinner I had today! Silly cookie.

Real method:

1) Using a chopping board and a cleaver (preferably a clean one, or at least one that doesn't have parts of your previous victim splattered over it anyway) chop the chicken into pieces/ short strips. After this is done, plop it into a pan with a little oil.

2. Next, try to chop an onion up without performing some self surgery and turning a white onion red. Dice the onion into very small pieces as nobody likes chewing on a piece of onion that resembles toe nail clippings. When the chicken is not long from being cooked, add the onions in too, to give them a bit of a head start. I swear Nintendo give Yoshi and Birdo a head start on Mario Kart because they ALWAYS seem to win. A bit like Mrs Peacock ALWAYS being the killer on Cluedo.*

3. When the chicken boobs are finally done, add the tomatoes and the paste. (And the powder and any other vegetables if you're being a smarty pants and are trying to out-do me.) Stir.

4. Add the double cream then let your colourful sick curry simmer for 10-15 minutes.

5. Boil the rice or follow the instructions on the back of the packet of Uncle Ben's rice. It's as easy as 1,2,3. (Unless you own a 650w microwave and you have to work everything out for yourself. Grrrr!)

6. Your sauce should have thickened by now and if it hasn't you've made the worst mistake in man kind and you are going to regret doing it and your life will be eaten with regret... [/Noel] Make a ring of rice (forget a ring of roses, rice is how we do it around here!) and pour the sludge/ curry into the crater. Mmm, doesn't it look good.

I had 4 bhajis because I am a pig.



You certainly might regret it in the morning.

* Well not always, but the new version of the game sees people be killed while in play and it is possible for the killer to kill themselves and then kill from beyond the grave.

Mmm that looks tasty. I fancy an indian takaway now.

'Chicken Tikka Masalalalalalala' You should get that patentedededed.

wud u lyk me 2 cook u 1 hun lol

You'd cook me a takeaway? Awww thanks hun your a star! OK I'd like:

1 x 'Chicken Tikka Masalalalalalala' with rice and bhajis.
1 x Rogan Josh
1 x Vindaloo
12 x Papadums
63 x Samosas
1 x Tandoori Chicken
1 x Dall Soup

And I'll have 2 bottles of wine please, one red, one white. You think you could knock that all up in say...15 minutes?

Alright then thankkkkks!

The Dal soup is the low calorie option because I'm guessing after eating everything before it you won't want to eat soup with a normal calorie content! The Chicken Tikka Masalalalalalala is fantastic today hun mwah

(And you can count the samosas if you don't believe that there is 63 there )

Copying and pasting the same samosas over again doesn't count as seperate samosas therefore they are null and void samosas. The same goes for the papadums. Bah you don't fool me cookie!

And where is my 2 bottles of wine???!!!

Pfft what kind of service is this!?

P.S. AND you were 8 minutes late.

I posted your two bottles of wine but then you disappeared so to look less weird, I 'drank' (aka deleted them) Also it's your own stupid fault because I didn't see your message till ten or so minutes after. I spent ages checking the samosas and the least you could do is appreciate them

In my take-away service, the customer is NEVER right.

Yeah sorry about that, I made myself a cheese and pickle sandwich and then went to bed. (Not something I usually do after I've just ordered takeaway.)

You drank my wine, how rude.

How is it MY fault that YOU didn't get your stupid arse here quicker?!

Alcohol is bad for you anyway, you wouldn't have enjoyed it.

It's your stupid fault because you ordered a stupid amount of stupid food (Including my amazing chicken tikka masalalalalalala) that was enough to feed a family of about 20 so thanks to my hardwork YOU should pay ME double for all my hardwork and all YOUR stupid complaining!

Why I otta...

Rude.

This is the worst service I have ever had the misfortune of using. I'm going to have you closed down!

Ah well, you were silly enough to eat my food!

You were silly enough to cook it.

Touché banker, touché...