I’m a Gleek. Yes, there I said it. If you’re not sure what I mean, I’m addicted to the show Glee and the songs and one of the first meals when we moved into our new place was this Japanese Pizza pancake called Okonimyaki as it was an easy dinner that wcould be made on the stovetop as we’re still waiting with bated breath for our new oven to arrive. And one of the first things I did once we had moved in was sing my little heart out to the theme song, something that I couldn’t do while staying at my parent’s place. I like to sing alone, yes I do. Whilst I appreciated my parents opening up their house to us, a girl has got to sing.

The renovations took about 2.5 months and we breathed a huge sigh of relief when it was finally finished. I had no idea how stressful renovating was until our bathroom guy showed up at 11:30pm and proceeded to hammer until 2am. We had no idea until one of our neighbours called me the next day saying apologising that she had to go down and tell him to stop hammering. Great” I said to my husband. “We are off to a great start with our neighbours” and I was sure that we were the least popular people in the building.

But now that it’s all finished it seems a distant memory (apart from the dozen boxes that greet me every day waiting to be unpacked). When I served this up to my husband, with the intention of sharing it, he wanted to appropriate it all for himself which I suppose is the ultimte compliment. It’s a ridiculously easy recipe and it is part of my new monthly column in Web Child (yes I’m a columnist! How Carrie Bradshaw ). The editor SydneyGalwho is a long time reader of NQN wanted me to do a story on making cabbage edible for kids and Okonomiyaki was the first thing that sprang to mind whilst still making a dish palatable for adults. It’s also very economical, versatile and relatively quick.

I went a bit artistic with the feathering details but a lattice pattern is more traditional and of course if you’re doing it for a child, a smiley face is almost de rigeur. They will love the pancakey taste and the hidden cabbage provides a nice crunch but it’s subtle enough so that they aren’t scared away. Plus with Halloween coming up, add some fake spiders and you have a spider’s web! The best thing about it is that the meat can be changed to whatever you have to hand or it can easily be done as vegetarian and it still tastes great.

So tell me Dear Reader, do you sing in front of people or only alone? Are you a karaoke star or strictly a shower singer?

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Allow me to draw you a rather woeful picture: we have finally moved into our new place and were waiting for our new oven to arrive. My baking fingers were itching to bake something. Like an addict I’d pore over cookbooks flagging the recipes that I wanted to make and don’t you know it, they were all cakes that required an oven. My hands would twitch, wanting to beat something or whisk something. Pictures of delicate macarons were pored over lustfully and longingly, my fingers stroking the pages. All things that required my long awaited oven. Until my friend Kathy (who I want to employ one day as she is such a fantastic ideas person unless of course someone else has already hired her) linked me to this recipe for a Five Minute Cheesecake in a Mug from the blog I Really Like Food.

Now those of you that have made baked cheesecakes know that they’re a long process. Whole cheesecakes take at least an hour in the oven although the mixing of one is a relatively quick process. So it should be possible surely? I tried a few variations trying to make my own version using raspberries and some turned out ok and some barely passable but the final recipe if I can say immodestly was rather good indeed.

The raspberries and lemon balance the creaminess and sweetness of the cheese. The key of course is to whisk it thoroughly. If it’s not mixed properly, the resultant cheesecake will be awfully lumpy – it needs to be smooth which does involve some elbow work. I refused to use the Kitchenaid for it, after all the key was to make it as easy as possible with as little equipment and washing up as possible. Like the Five Minute Chocolate Mug Cake, timing is the key. I dislike giving timings for microwaves as they vary so much but mine took 60 seconds on 50% power and then another 45 seconds on 50% power but do check and adjust. It will cook further once it’s out of the microwave.

Of course it’s not an entire miracle and you do need to chill it for a couple of hours to get the true, cold cheesecake texture but you can console yourself with the idea that you only have to cook it for 5 minutes. Might I add that one of the best things is that you really need to use low fat cream cheese and sour cream – yes you need to if you want to beat this by hand. The beautiful part is that it doesn’t taste low fat and truly only takes 5 minutes. OK so it is a miracle indeed.

So tell me Dear Reader, what culinary miracles do you dream of performing? Dinner on the table within 15 minutes? A neverfail souffle or the ability to throw amazing dinner parties? Or something else altogether?

And because it’s Wallpaper Wednesday, here is your image to help you get through Hump Day!

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How was your weekend? Good I hope   If yours was like mine, it was furiously busy with a whirlwind of activity. And although I was frantically busy, a part of me (perhaps the insane part) thought that making my own cheese was a good idea. The cheese that I wanted to make was Mascarpone. For one, it’s usually quite expensive to buy with a 250g tub retailing for about $7.50 – a kilo of ricotta by comparison is about $7 a kilo and reason two, it’s delicious. Then one day I came across the wonderful Deeba’s post on Passionate About Baking where she made mascarpone and it looked so easy and yet beautifully creamy that I bookmarked it straight away knowing that I would be making my very first cheese soon.

Mascarpone is similar to a cream cheese although more creamy and voluptuous and less “solid”. A speciality of Lombardy in Italy it’s a double or triple cream cheese which is denatured by using tartaric acid or a lemon or lime juice. It’s then drained of its whey and the resultant cheese is sublimely rich and creamy. Simply mixing it with some rose syrup and some fruit and it’s an amazing but simple dessert on it’s own. It’s also the cheese that happens to be used in Tiramisu so you know it can’t be bad right?

Draining the whey off

The process was straightforward and the key was simply to heat it up to the right temperature. After that it was simple and the time taken was just in waiting and like making bread from scratch, I found making my own cheese very rewarding an experience too. You’d think I’d just split the atom such was my pride at my voluptuously creamy mascarpone (and sadly there was no-one around to High Five). “Try it!” I later said to everyone within a spoons’ reach. My 900ml of cream made 700grams of mascarpone and even then I was proud of having created something that would cost me about $20 to buy for a fraction of the price and not only that, it beyond fresh.

Last week I received some amazing news too! I was tweeted the news by the SMH’s Simon Thomsen that I had made it into the new The Sydney Morning Herald “Foodies Guide to Sydney 2010″ book! I was one of two bloggers featured in there. For overseas readers, the SMH is the foodie newspaper and they put out an annual Good Food Guide with restaurant reviews and a Foodies Guide to Sydney. I was amazed and the very next day I got my hands on a copy. I opened it up to the index and squealed “I’m in the index!” to my mother who gave me an amused look. I flicked to the page and there it was. My own feature – and they got me. Yes they really understood me and what my blog was all about which was so rewarding.

My very own feature! Click to enlarge

So how did I celebrate? By going to the World Chef Showcase (story to come this week), a dinner at Rockpool Bar & Grill and a lunch cooked by Martin Boetz and Peter Gordon at Longrain, all stories to come. Many years ago I would have bought a bag or some shoes but now it’s all about food and I couldn’t be happier (woe to my waistline though ).

So tell me Dear Reader, how do you celebrate good news?

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