Baked Oreo Cheese Cake

Ingredients:

Base:

120 g Oreo biscuits (without the cream)

50g melted butter

Filling:

2 x 250 g Philadelphia Cream Cheese

200 g Castor sugar

200ml sour cream

3 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla essence

5 pieces of Oreo biscuits (Coarsely chopped)

Method:

Preheat oven at 175 C.

A) To prepare base:

1) Crush the Oreo biscuits into fine pieces and then mix with the melted butter.

2) Press the the above mixture into a round 9 inch spring form pan. Ensure that the mixture is evenly pressed to the bottom of the pan.

3) Chill it inside the fridge while you prepare the filling.

B) To prepare filling:

1) Beat cream cheese and Castor sugar until smooth.

2) Break eggs one by one and continue beat in slow mode.

3) Pour vanilla essence, followed by sour cream and continue to beat in slow mode.

4) Add in the coarsely chopped Oreo biscuits into the batter and mix evenly.

5) Pour the batter into the chilled base that you've prepared earlier.

Place the 9 inch pan into a slightly bigger pan (10 inch) and then placed it inside another rectangular size of pan. Then fill the rectangular pan with hot water before putting this into the preheated oven. This is to create water bath effect i.e. keeps the cake moist as it cooks and prevents it from cracking.

Bake this cake for about an hour or until the cake is firmly set (appear to be slightly brownish on top). Leave it inside the oven for about 3o minutes with closed door.

Take it out from the oven, and then carefully run knife around the outer edge of the cake before removing the ring pan. The cheese cake is best to be eaten only after it has been refrigerated for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Enjoy!

Steamed broccoli

Ingredients:

1 bunch of broccoli

Method:

1) Rinse out well the broccoli, and cut into small, bite-size florets. Cut off the stem and peel off the thick skin around the stem. Quarter or halve the stem lengthwise.

2) Soak them in the water until you are ready to placed them into the food steamer.

The broccoli is now ready to be placed into the food steamer. Steam about 20 min.

Note:

1) You may choose to add salt, butter, pepper, olive oil to the broccoli. But I prefer it to be plain.

Steamed Prawn

Ingredients:

10-15 pieces of medium size of prawn (you can add more/less)

4-5 slices of garlic (smashed and chopped to small pieces)

1 teaspoon of brown sugar

1 tablespoon rice wine

3 tablespoon of soy sauce

salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1) Trim and wash the prawns. Arrange prawns nicely in a medium size porcelain/glass/stainless steel bowl (as long as it can fit your food steamer rack)

2) Season the prawns with salt, pepper, soy sauce and rice wine

3) Sprinkle the brown sugar on top of the prawns (just to enhance the sweetness of the prawn).

4) Top the prawns with the chopped garlic evenly.

The prawns are now ready to be placed inside the food steamer. Steam for about 20 min.

Steamed Fish Grouper (Kerapu)

Ingredients:

1 x grouper fish (about 400g)

3 inches ginger (peeled and cut into thin pieces)

1 tablespoon of rice wine

4 tablespoon of light soy sauce

salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1) Clean the fish (remove scales, gills, guts, etc). Rub the fish with some flour for a few minutes to remove the strong fish smell. Then washed the flour off from the fish with water.

2) Season the fish with salt and pepper.

3) Place the fish into a semi folded aluminium foil.

4) Pour the soy sauce and rice wine on top of the fish.

5) Top the fish with the cut ginger.

The fish is now ready to be placed onto the food steamer. Always ensure that fish/meat is placed below other type of food (e.g. vegetables). Steam it for 15-20 min.

Note:

1) I didn't preheat the water in the water container. Therefore, although fish can cook roughly between 1-15 min, I gave some 5 min time allowance with this food steamer.

2) I placed the fish on the bottom rack, followed by the prawn, and broccoli on the top rack.

Healthy Food anyone?

Hubby and I have been talking about eating healthy. Oh well...lately I've been quite indulged in the 'baking season' with cakes, bread, buns etc... so at least for meal time, I need to apply some healthy way of cooking.

So, we've been scouting around for food steamer. Finally we managed to find one at a right price and it fulfilled all the requirements that we've always wanted i.e. 3 layers, removable tray for larger steaming compartment, and manual timer (i.e. not the digital type). Introducing my new toy in the kitchen ----> Morgan Food Steamer:

So without any delay, I've prepared our dinner using this food steamer. The result.....AWESOME! The food taste good and most important thing...hubby likes it. YEAH!!

So below are the simple recipes that I've prepared using this new toy of mine:)

1) Steamed Fish Grouper (Kerapu)

2) Steamed Prawn

3) Steamed Broccoli

Just simple recipes but well worth to try. Just need to set the timer to 20 mins for fish and broccoli, and I added another 5 mins for the prawn. You could cook rice with this food steamer as well, but I didn't as I've occupied all 3 compartments with the above recipes.

I would highly recommend this to anyone especially for any working person, as it would save you a great deal of time in cooking. You can just prepare all the recipes and pop them into the steamer and leave it to cook. After 20 min, your meal is ready! Best of all.....they are prepared in a healthier way. No frying involved and the nutrients of the food are preserved better in steaming. Healthy food it is!