No Bake Oreo-Nutella Cheesecake

I love Cheesecake, specifically, the No Bake Cheesecake. This is one sinful indulgence that is so easy to do. 

I know a lot of people love Nutella in their bread but apparently, for someone who has a sweet tooth, I couldn't take the sweetness. After a fail try of making a cheesecake some years ago, I finally had the courage to try it again. I kept on thinking about Nutella, Oreo and cheesecake and of course, I couldn't imagine how it would taste but still my finger typed no bake nuttella cheesecake recipe on Google and I was surprised to see so many results.

After looking at each and every search result, I finally decided to give this recipe from Nigella.com a try though I changed some of it based on what I have at the time I made this cheesecake. So here's my version of No Bake Oreo-Nutella Cheesecake.

Ingredients:

Crust:

250 grams Oreo Cookies

75 grams Unsalted Butter

2tbsp Nutella spread

Cheesecake:

400 grams Nutella spread (at room temperature)

500 grams cream cheese (at room temperature)

Steps:

1. Prepare the crust by crushing the oreo cookies. For this step, I put the cookies in a ziplock bag then break them to a sandy consistency then transfer it to a bowl. After that, mix 2tbsps of nutella and butter in the crushed oreo. Actually, this is easier done in a processor but I dont know why I decided to do it manually.

2. Tip into 23cm/9inch round springform and press into the base using the back of the spoon. Place in the fridge to chill.

3. Beat the cream cheese and the nutella spread until well mixed. (As per the recipe, beat the cream cheese and icing sugar then mix the nutella spread. Unfortunately, I dont have an icing sugar when I made this)

4. Take the springform out of the fridge and carefully smooth the nutella-cream cheese mixture over the base. I set aside some crushed oreo  and scatter them over on top of the cheesecake mixture.

5. Put the springform back in the fridge and chill for a minimum of 4 hours before serving.

The taste is delicious, rich and smooth BUT it melts easily. I'm not sure if the icing sugar has something to do to make it firmer once it has been chilled although in a youtube tutorial that I watched, the chef said that nutella cheesecake doesn't need gelatin for it to become firm as nutella firms up when stored in a cool place. With this note, make sure you keep your nutella spread in room temperature.

Overall, it's good and worth every calorie!  I will certainly do it again.

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Leche Flan (Creme Caramel)

Leche flan is one of the desserts I really, really love. I want it creamy, smooth and not too sweet.

My friends told me that it's very easy to make a leche flan but honestly the thought of caramelizing the sugar overwhelmed me, weird right? When I received my steamer, I challenged myself to make this delicious dessert. With the help of Google, I was able to find many recipes for this. Some use the whole egg while most were just used egg yolks. I tried some of the recipes and I kind of failed. Aside from that, I'm looking for a certain taste that I remember from way back when.

Finally, I remembered that it was Cherry's ( a friend and a former officemate)leche flan. I asked her if she could share her recipe with me and generous as she is, she gave it to me and wish me good luck (I really need that).

A good friend of mine, Janis, shared with me on how to caramelize the sugar using microwave oven. She got it from this blog. Be careful in handling it though cause its TOO HOT and you should be quick in pouring the caramelized sugar in the molds cause it hardens way too fast.

My first try of this recipe was too firm but the taste was good. I realized then that I'm using small molds and so I should adjust the time. My second try was good BUT too much caramelized sugar. My third time, it was perfect!!! My friends who were able to try it was also happy with the taste, consistency and the sweetness.

So here it is, Cherry's Leche Flan Recipe:

8 eggyolks

3/4 cup condensed milk

1/2 cup water

1/2 teaspoon vanilla(optional as this was not in her recipe but I normally see this included in most leche flan recipes so I decided to add it as well).

1. Caramelized the sugar and transfer it to the leche flan molds and let it cool.

 2. Beat together all the ingredients until well mixed. Better to hand mix them using a wire whisk to prevent bubble from forming.

3. Strain the leche flan mix and distribute evenly in the molds.

4. Cover the mold with a foil and steam for 30 minutes. I initially set it to 20 but when I checked it by inserting a knife in the flan, it's still not yet done. I steamed for another 5 minutes, checked again but same result. Steamed for 5 minutes more and the knife came out clean.

5. Let it cool and chill it in the fridge for an hour or two before serving. To serve, run a knife around the edges of the flan then invert onto a plate.

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Blogging thru iPhone or iPad

There are tons of apps in iTunes for iPhone and iPad but the Blogger apps solved my problem in blogging. Blogging requires time to upload pictures, editing then uploading it to your posts. 

People nowadays take pictures using their phone then edits the picture with apps such as Snapseed or apple's built in editor. This means everything you need to blog is already on your phone or on your iPad. 

Of course this app cater mainly in creating, editing and/or publishing posts. Designing your blog and changing some configurations still requires you to use the browser version of blogger.

After installing the apps and launching it, the login screen will appear. Once your email and password has been verified, you menu will look like this:

Tapping the Posts will give you the list of all your posts.

The Blogger apps only have the following Settings:

Tap New Post to start creating a new post.

You can insert pictures in your blog post from your photo library or by taking a new picture by tapping the camera icon found on the upper right corner of your screen.

Tap Done when you're finish then you can add Labels as well as Locations.

If you're ready to Save and/or Publish your post, just tap on Save.

 

Tapping on View Blog on the Main Screen will show the mobile version of your blog.

If you're blog has Pages, it will be in a drop-down form in the mobile version.

Happy Mobile Blogging!

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Customizing Your Blog

I just had this crazy idea of redesigning the look of my blog and make it look more "Pro" to motivate me more. Of course, the ever reliable Google is my handy tool for learning stuff. And with this, I found the following sites which guided me in what I want to achieve:

1. How to add Pages to your blog from Just For Daisy as well as adding a clickable social media button thru this post

2. Thru this post, How Can My Blogger Pages and Tabs, I learned about inklinkz.com that will help you link-up your posts to your pages with a very cool thumbnails. For me, this is applicable if if the posts in your Page has pictures like recipes, travel or photography so it can have a thumbnail when your Page is being viewed.

3. Now for Page where posts are without pictures, then you can just manually add on Internal Links. This is also useful when you have a Page that organizes the blogs that you're following.

4. I learn how to change the blog's default homepage thru this site

5. Add your instagram photos in the sidebar of your blog using SnapWidget or intagme. I used intagme in my blog.

6. Get your Instagram badge at IG badge and include it in your blog as well so people can follow you if they want.

7. You can get your Twitter Follow Me button at Twitter Resource Buttons

8. I learned how to embed your instagram photos in your posts in this site How To Embed Instagram Photos.

9. Create your own signature at MyLiveSignature.

10. To include Pinterest Pin It Button on image hover, BloggerSentral made an easy to follow instruction.

Update:

11. I learned how to add related posts to your blog in Blogtimenow.com


The above tutorials are really easy to follow especially for newbies.

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My Go-To Food: Fruits & Vegetable Salad and Air-Fried Pork Belly

After a long day at work, we always look forward to go home to rest, have a home-cooked dinner, relax and have a good night sleep. The thing is, before you savor a home-cooked meal, there is this very vital stage where all tired-from-work people would wish to skip and that is the preparation and cooking of your dinner. Not to mention the daily question of wgat to have for dinner. You also want your dinner to fuzz free, easy to prepare, delicious and healthy. Now that I'm trying to stay away from rice, vegetable salad has been my substitute but my usual combination of lettuce, cucumber & capsicum can be a bit boring when you're taste buds is so used to it. Good thing with salad is you can have all the variations you want. This is by far my most favorite combination: 

Fruit & Vegetable Salad

1 Butterhead Lettuce

1 Cucumber

1 Red Capsicum

1 Apple

1 Orange

5 pcs Strawberries

12 pcs Grapes

All you need to is to peel cucumber and cut everything in bite size pieces and mix all together. Easy-peasy. You can drizzle it with the salad dressing that you prefer. I love Italian dressing and it goes well with this salad combination.

Salad alone is not enough for me, I want meat. Most often, I buy sausages or bacon from grocery. I normally cook it in my Phillips Air Fryer. There are times that I also fry Tokwa (Taukwa) and squid balls/fish balls, But this is my ultimate favorite. My comfort food which goes perfectly well with my salad whatever variation it may be.

Air-Fried Pork Belly

250g Pork Belly (I sometimes mix it with lean meat since I dont eat the fats)

Olive oil

Spices I have from Masterfoods:

Lemon Pepper

Garlic Salt

Rosemary

Preheat the air fryer at 180F for 5 minutes. Mix the spices in the olive oil. The amount of this mixture should just be enough to coat the pork. After mixing, cut the pork belly in half and coat with the olive oil and spices mixture.

Arrange the pork in the air fryer.

Set the timer to 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, open the air fryer and turn the pork to cook the other side. Set the timer once again to 20 minutes. 

And now your air-fried pork belly is ready. I love the smell of this.

I normally cut it into bite size just like the usual cut of lechon kawali. 

Serve and enjoy. Bon Apetite!