The best part about this torte should have been the pear- using canned pear was my mistake, but everything else about this torte was utterly fantastic. I’ll redo it next time by lightly poaching some pear halves and it’ll be lovely. I highly suggest you make it as it’s a) incredibly simple, and b) incredibly delicious. The crunch of the crust pairs (hah… pears) so nicely with the creaminess of the creamcheese mixture and the texture of the pears.

Pear Cheesecake Torte

Adapted from Cafecherie

Ingredients:

• 1 stick room-temperature organic butter
• two half-cups of granulated sugar
• 1 cup AP flour
• 1 brick cream cheese (full-fat for best results, organic)
• 1 egg (organic, cage-free, brown)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 sliced peeled pears

Process:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
2. Beat the butter and 1 of the half-cups of sugar until light and fluffy. Once fluffy, add in the flour and mix until well combined. Take your dough (oh, that’s what you were doing!) and spread it firmly on the bottom and about an inch up the sides of a 9-inch springform (you’ll be glad you can remove the bottom)
3. Beat together the cream cheese and the remaining sugar in the same bowl from earlier (no need to wash!) until well blended. Once well combined, add in the egg and vanilla and mix thoroughly. Spread your cheesecake-y mixture evenly over crust the crust. 
4. Sprinkle the pears (peeled and cored) with some sugar, the cinnamon, and place in 1-2 tblspn of butter into a pan to lightly cook/soften them. Once soft, arrange them over the cream cheese mixture. At this point, feel free to sprinkle on almonds – the sister’s not a fan, so I decided to forego them.
5. Bake the torte in the middle of the oven for  10 min at the original temperature, then reduce the temperature to 375°F and continue baking for an additional 25 min.
6. Cool on a wire rack until cool enough to put in the fridge; then have it hang out there for 2-3 hours so it can settle into its cheesecakeyness happily before you get to munching upon it.

The wait time once cooked does test you, but it’s worth it – you’ve got cheesecake, tart, and soft baked fruit all in one dessert…. for added deliciousness, take some pear nectar and reduce it with vanilla, a little cinnamon, and a tiny bit of brown sugar to make a syrup drizzle to go on top!

For the New Year, the boyfriend and I were invited to his parents’ house for a potluck party. As is often the case, I was expected to bring a cake :). I was looking for something simple, fruit-based, light, and not very sweet. I decided to do something traditional and went with a light, almond spongey cake topped with whipped cream and a ton of fruits. It’s a very simple cake, and a great way to showcase delicious fresh fruit that’s in season, so it’s also easily editable for different times of year. Best of all, it appeals to a large audience as it’s something that really plays on the simplicity of clean flavours.

Fruit & Almond Sponge Cake

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs (brown, cage-free, organic)
• 1/2 cup organic skim milk (no rBST!)
• 1 cup self-rising flour
• scant 1 cup cake flour
• 2 tblspn soy butter, softened to room temp
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1.5 tsp almond extract
• 1/4 tsp salt
• LOTS of fresh, seasonal fruit
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1/4 cup apricot jelly (organic, without too much added sugar)

Process:

1. Preheat your oven to 350ºF and grease a 9-inch springform pan.
2. In your stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, then beat in the eggs, one at a time (be sure to really do them one at a time. trust me on this.)
3. Add the vanilla extract, almond extract, salt, and milk and beat on low until just combined. Then add the flour and barely mix enough- as soon as the flour is incorporated, stop beating.
4. Pour the mixture into your cake pan (and place it on a baking sheet), baking for about 25 minutes (until a toothpick comes out clean and the cake is spongey). Remove from cake pan and place on a wire rack to cool.
5. Once cooled thoroughly, cut the cake in half to make two layers, and beat the cream into a whipped cream (adding 2-3 tsp of sugar halfway through to make it a bit sweet).
6. Place a layer of whipped cream and some fruit on the first layer of the cake, then add on layer 2 and spread the remaining whipped cream over the entire two layers of the cake (and sides).
7. Arrange fresh fruit on top as desired and brush the apricot jelly (warmed in the microwave) over everything to make a nice shiny glaze.

Yum, right? It’s simple, it’s not too guilt-inducing, and it’ll please the whole family. Make one for your next spring or summer potluck and take advantage of ripe stone fruit, fresh berries, melons, citrus…. so many options! I plan to make one again soon with different fruits and maybe a thin layer of marzipan halfway up the cake for added almond flavour :). Sprinkle on toasted almond slivers for a final touch or powder on some confectioner’s sugar in a pretty shape.

This was, without a doubt, the most delicious salad I have ever made. The fact that it was so remains a happy stroke of luck, for I was really just haphazardly putting things together and hoping they would work in conjunction. Thankfully, they did :) and the result was a miracle. The boyfriend took three servings. THREE. Three servings of salad! Miraculous! And our other dinner guest- a friend of mine who is allergic to gluten and has issues with mainy dairy products- took two. I was proud of this accomplishment.

My friend B was joining us so that I could make her a thank-you dinner; she has gifted me so many wonderful kitchen gadgets and I thought that the clear way to say thanks would be to use them for her benefit. B, however, is an impeccable guest to the last, and thus brought yet another gift with her upon arrival… meaning that I’ll just have to have her over again soon :)

Due tu B’s intolerance to gluten, I was looking for a way to add crunch to the salad. I immediately thought, “nut!” and looked about the cupboards. We had some cashews that were sitting about in a jar, and I had some honey-roasted cashews (these are even crunchier!) and thought they would work well. I then began assembling other ingredients and eventually had a nice mix of things put together.

The key to this salad is the warm pear glaze that serves as a dressing. I had prepared some extra virgin olive oil and pear-infused vinegar to use, but they really weren’t needed at all. And happily, the dressing of pear glaze consists of pear… and nothing else, really! Cheers to simplicity and healthiness.

Warm Pear-Glazed Chicken and Cashew Spring Salad

Ingredients:

• 2 large chicken breases, cleaned
• 1/3 lb spring mix, washed and dried
• 1 cup fresh spinach leaves, washed and dried
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 1 cup  jumbo black raisins
• 1/2 cup sultanas (to put directly in salad)
• 1/3 cup sultanas (to poach)
• 1 cup honey-toasted cashews
• 1/2 cup whole cashews (normal)
• 1 can Kerns brand pear nectar
• 1 half yellow bell pepper, diced finely
• 1/2 lb baby carrots, sliced thinly
• 1 tbl soy butter
• 1 tsp sea salt, freshly-ground black pepper, coriander, nutmeg

Process:

1. Place spring mix in a large salad bowl. Add in spinach, cranberries, raisins, sultanas (not 1/3 cup for poaching), bell pepper, carrots and toss thoroughly.
2. Chop cashews (both types) together into fairly large chunks; add in to salad and toss again.
3. Place soy butte rin a medium sautee pan. Coat chicken on one side with half of spice mix (salt, pepper, coriander, nutmeg), and place in pan. Once bottom side is seared, flip and season other side. Then flip again.
4. Once both sides are fully seared, add in the 1/3 cup of sultanas and the can of Kerns nectar.
5. Keep heat to medium and flip chicken every 4-5 minutes, moving the sultanas around and placing at times over the chicken. Once the chicken is firm to the touch and the pear nectar has caramelized to a thick, full-bodied consistency, place chicken on a cutting board and roughly chop into very large pieces. Spoon all caramelized pear nectar into the salad bowl.
6. Place chicken onto bowl and toss one last time, making sure to distribute chicken and pear nectar thoroughly.

It’s delicious- trust me. Try it! It’s better warm, though the boyfriend finished the leftovers the next day cold and said it was still very good. Thanks to the sweet pear and honeyed pecans, it has a very sweet taste. “It’s like candy”- B and the boyfriend both agreed. And if you could have candy for salad… wouldn’t you? :)

I apologize for being so slow the past week, it’s been a bit of a mad time, but I am at long last documenting the culinary escapades that have since unfolded! First on the list is this hot, hot, hot panino featuring two ingredients and none more within its starchy encasings: pear and cheese. I kid you not, it’s literally that simple, and yet oozing- dripping, really- with flavour. H and I were in a panini-making mood and, quite conveniently, she has a gorgeous panini press.  It was like a sign.

The trick to getting this to be chock-full of flavour is using the right kind of cheese. We used some Delice Nostalgie cheese (it’s a triple creme French cheese in the style of Brie) that I had been keeping in the fridge for a while, and a mildly ripe pear (not so firm that it was crunchy nor so ripe that it fell apart).

Hot Pear & Brie Panino

Ingredients (makes one sandwich):

• 2 slices cut approx. 1-inch thick of rustic bread of your choice (french boule, rustic/country bread, a fairly dense ciabatta, etc- so long as it’s got few holes and a good crust)
• 1 small pear, medium-ripe, peeled and cut into 1/3-inch thick slices
• 2-3 half-inch-thick slices of Brie (or similar creamy French) cheese

Process:

1. Heat panini press or grill pan
2. Arrange pear slices on one bread slice
3. Arrange cheese slices on other bread slice- note, as this is a creamy cheese, you may need to spread the cheese evenly onto the bread (see pictures below) rather than simply arranging slices (this will depend on how creamy your chosen cheese is)
4. Put bread slices together carefully so as to not allow contents to fall out
5. Place sandwich on panini press and pull down the top; or, place on grill pan and place pressing tool on top; or, place on grill pan and if you do not have a panini press, put a heavy weight on top
6. Grill/press for 3-4 minutes, then if browned to your preference, flip over and grill for another 3-4 minutes
7. Remove from heat, slice in half at a slight diagonal, and dig in :)

It’s quite possibly the most simple sandwich ever and yet it is so insanely flavourful. The cheese melts like butter and moistens the bread, whil ethe pear cooks into a gentle texture and flavour that melds nicely with the cheese. This is vegetarian-friendly and an excellent way to celebrate the simplicity of very few ingredients.

I was on a mission to make some amuse-bouche items for dinner last night, and settled on two recipes, one of which was this strudel. My mother makes a very yummy apple strudel, but savoury (particularly sweet-and-savoury) strudel is something I’ve been experimenting with for some time. The recipe I followed in my book (Antipasti, by Simon and Schuster- yes, that makes me think of Glee (great book, by the way, I highly reccommend it for sophisticated appetizers)) called for pancetta… but as I don’t eat red meat and I did plan on having some of this one, I substituted for turkey in half of the strudels and no meat in the other half.

The process is quite simple: Prepare your ingredients before you deal with the phyllo dough (the ingredients could be just about anything) because it will dry quickly and tear and make you cry because it’s ripping and- you get the idea. I went with the following for this iteration (and did not use exact quantites, I apologize): chopped pear pieces, crushed cashews, mesquite deli turkey, shredded mozzarella, grated domestic parmesan, salt, pepper, olive oil, and freshly-grated gruyere. The original recipe suggested fennel seeds and butter for the top, both of which I decided to forgo. Once you’ve assembled your ingredients (aka tossed them haphazardly onto the phyllo (just pretend you’re Italian, making pizza, and know what you’d doing (gesticulating wildly and muttering melodically about your cousin Mario should do the trick))), roll your phyllo, and place it on a cookie sheet.

You can, at this point, do a number of things. Brush it with olive oil, butter (choose soy butter!), or egg (as I did for this strudel, then top with cheese and salt if savoury (I sprinkled on parm, grated on some gruyere, added large sea salt, cracked pepper, and some honey (that’s what burned/caramelized, but it tastes great, worry not)) or, if sweet, sugar. Bake them at 365 degrees for about 15 minutes and then eat them hot out of the oven or refrigerate overnight for a more dense, consistent strudel. If sweet, eat it hot with a scoop of vanilla ice cream- you can never go wrong with that combination.

It’s a yummy thing to make for dinner parties as you could make these even smaller than I did- I was too lethargic to attempt cutting the phyllo, but you can easily cut it to make tiny strudel rolls or square for strudel packages! A pizza cutter is the easiest way to cut the phyllo, but be careful- depending on the brand (or if you’re brave and made it yourself), you’ll have to be quick and efficient to avoid drying and tears.

Try it and see what ingredients you like filling your strudels with! Sweet, savoury, or a bit of both, these delectable treats can be eaten as a small appetizer or sliced thickly for a main course.

Pear-infused culinary treats continue with today’s cake:

At Half-Price Books I recently found a very cute little Italian cookbook and immediately thought of H- she does love her Italian recipes- and gifted it to her. In it, she found a recipe for pear and ginger cake, and suggested it be our next week’s recipe choice! Though the pears were a bit on the firm side, I think they lent themselves well to the recipe.

I attempted to find it online but have yet to find the same one, and, not wanting to mislead you, thus won’t link to a recipe until I find it… somewhere. The recipe was fairly simple, albeit odd- the pears went into the bottom of the pan (we used a bundt, care of H) uncooked (not too uncommon), but there was very little flour in the cake- really, little batter at all. But it rose to the occasion quite nicely, and caramelized around the edges. A scoop of melting vanilla ice cream, a sprinkle of cinnamon, and perhaps a small pile of uncooked pear slices top this one off quite nicely. There’s not much to say on this one other than the fact that it’s a nice cake- not too heavy, about half of it is pear… a bit heavy on the butter, but we used smart balance, so life could certainly be worse! I found the ginger taste to be a bit too strong (it pricks!) but the cake’s other eaters (H, my sister, the boyfriend) didn’t find the ginger to be in excess at all… so clearly I’m odd man out. It was quite yummy regardless, and certainly very pretty to look at!

Part two of the souffle extravaganza was dessert: pear souffle! Fruit souffle is as popular as savoury souffle- really, so many things can be souffle’d- and pear’s a nice choice. As it’s incredibly thick when churned, it creates a coarse paste that lends itself well to souffle. It’s also amoung the starchier fruits, so you don’t need flour when making this one (as opposed to a lighter fruit, ie: berries, where some flour would probably be needed to add volume to the mixture).

We chose epicurious again as our recipe (ah, that was another great show to watch! why are all the good ones cancelled?) and followed it rather precisely. We didn’t make the chocolate sauce as making two souffles was a hefty enough task for one evening. We also had stations of sorts: A manned the pears while the cooked, Saloni and I pureed the pears and whisked in the yolks to the mixed puree. And we had the cheese souffle going simultaneously for extra fun.

There’s not much else to say on this one… it’s a fairly simple recipe if you follow it closely, but it is time-consuming. Oddly, this one yielded much more souffle than the cheese recipe, so there was enough left over to snack on the next day for dessert. And mmh, it was a yummy snack. My only regret is that we were out of vanilla ice cream at the time to accompany it…