Since Marianne is on a sugar fee-ish kick, I have a cottage cheese pie recipe I’d like to challenge you with Mandy (and I think it’s gluten free). It’s about the only recipe I make that people outside my family actually enjoy. It could make a snack for the Wrangles troops.

Bel’s Cottage Cheese Pie

Recipe

1/2 cup white rice

2 tblsp snipped chives (optional)

30g melted butter

500g cottage cheese

6 eggs

6 rashers of bacon (diced)

5 spring onions (snipped finely)

1 spanish onion (diced)

pinch of salt

Method

Cook rice and allow to cool

Sweat off the bacon, onion, spring onion and allow to cool

Preheat oven to 200c

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix gently until combined

Pour mix into a greased pie dish

Cook until set and is a nice golden colour

*use a fork to stir the pie gently every 15-20 minutes during the cooking process

Mandy Says:

This month in Cook Club, Bel and I traded places. That is, she was the one to challenge me with a new recipe. Well, if this one is anything to go by, Bel can challenge me – or as it turned out, us – any time. Life has been crazy-busy for our family lately, mostly due to the amount of time we’re spending with our skateboard-mad sons at skate parks.

On Saturday, I did the skate-mum thing with our three boys plus an extra, while my husband stayed and did the home-duties thing. Yes, that’s right. I passed the buck. Simon was the one to take up Bel’s challenge and make the pie. And…it was a HUGE hit with all our exhausted skaters (even the two who won’t eat rice. And the one who says he doesn’t eat cheese. They seriously demolished this thing without asking once what it contained. I call that a win for parents of fussy eaters everywhere!)

Simon making Cottage Cheese Pie

Ready to cook!

Nom!

Bake, Sizzle and Simple are three new bite-sized cookbooks from Valli Little and the team behind Australian food magazine, delicious.

I have Sizzle and Simple from the collection, and can guarantee I’ll also be checking out Bake in the near future. While these cookbooks might be small, they each contain sixty recipes – all of them simple and achievable even for those who aren’t so awesome in the kitchen. The layout is clear, with one recipe and the corresponding colour photo across each double page spread. The gorgeous photos alone are enough to get you cooking.

Sizzle concentrates on food that, well, sizzles! Hot flame cooking. BBQ and grill. This one is definitely for the carnivores, though it does have a small number of vegetarian recipes. Dishes are drawn from cuisines all over the world, and while a couple are more decadent main meals, most are easy brunches or mid-week meals. There’s Eye Fillet Steak with Raspberry Sauce, Salmon Skewers with Fennel and Orange Salad, Tuna Wasabi Burgers, Strawberry and Brie Sandwiches and Fried Eggs with Bacon Jam. Yes, you read that right. Bacon Jam. With ingredients like bourbon and brewed espresso. Oh, my… I think I’ll be checking that one out first…

Simple is just as the title portrays. Simple, fast recipes that rely on pantry staples such as pasta, rice or couscous and match them with fresh ingredients. See? Simple. There’s twists on the old standards like Spaghetti and Mussels, Homestyle Meatloaf and Singapore Noodles. Then there’s the Macadamia Crumbed Chicken Strips with salsa, Prawn, Chilli and Pesto Pizza and the Lamb and Haloumi Sausage Rolls. Like Sizzle, Simple also has a small number of vegetarian dishes.

Bake, Sizzle and Simple join Spice, Indulge and Slow in this series of mini-books. You’ll find loads of inspiration between the pages, and their small size makes them easy to store in an easy-to-access kitchen cupboard or shelf.

Sizzle and Simple

by Valli Little and the delicious team

Sizzle ISBN – 978-0-7333-3363-7

Simple ISBN – 978-0-7333-3364-4

ABC Books

Melissa May says the oranges and eggs she used are fresh from her Dad, and recipe is inspired for her memories of her Grandpa loving orange cake so much.

Ingredients

Four oranges (any kind)

Half a cup of raw sugar

Two cups of sifted self-raising flour

One hundred and twenty five grams of chopped unsalted butter

Four small eggs or two large eggs

Syrup

One quarter cup raw sugar

Half cup cold water

Method

Preheat oven 200 c fan force. Grease a twenty centimetre ring cake tin then sprinkle one teaspoon of sugar in the bottom of the pan. Slice one orange thinly and place sliced orange in the bottom on the ring tin. Take the zest of three oranges then juice the the pulp. Cream butter till light and fluffy. Slowly add sugar till combined and dissolved. Add eggs one at a time. Mixture should be pale yellow and frothy . Slowly add flour and half a cup of orange juice with some of the zest. Mix until well combined.

Add more juice if needed or water to thin cake mix. Put the cake batter in the ring tin. Bake in a moderate oven, 180 c fan force if you have it, for forty five to fifty minutes or till a skewer comes out clean.

Syrup

To make syrup put sugar, remaining juice, and zest in an suitable small saucepan. Heat gently, add a small amount of water. Do not boil or over heat you do not want to make toffee. A thin syrup will take fifteen minutes to make. When the cake is cooked, take out of oven and leave for ten minutes. Turn cake onto a rack to cool. When cake is just warm put on a cake plate and carefully pour syrup over the cake. Repeat a few times.

Next make a cup of tea, coffee, or hot chocolate then get a good book, piece of cake, and sit down to enjoy !

CHEESYMITE (or whatever-you-mite) SCROLLS

I’ve made these scrolls three times over the last week for my little family. Cheese and vegemite is definitely the winning combination for my sons, followed closely by cheese and bacon. Normally I’d make life easier by making the dough in the breadmaker, but sadly mine died a sudden death a couple of weeks ago (gasp! I know, right?) Of course, you could use any combination of toppings that tickle your fancy – let me know what you come up with!

Dough

450 g / 3 cups plain flour

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

250 ml water

2 tbs olive oil

3 tsp yeast

Toppings

Vegemite / tasty cheese

Bacon pieces / tasty cheese

Shaved turkey / Camembert cheese / cranberry sauce Salami / spinach / tomato chutney / mozzarella cheese

In a large bowl, place measured ingredients in the order listed above. Bring together and mix with your (clean!) hands until you form a dough. Remove from bowl and place on a flat, floured surface and knead for ten minutes…you can thank me for the workout when you’re done. Place back into the bowl and cover with oiled plastic wrap. Tip: olive oil in spray form on Glad Wrap works brilliantly. Place in a warm spot for aprox 30 minutes, or until your dough has doubled in size. After rising, punch the dough down with your fist and repeat the kneading and rising process.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.

To make, divide your finished dough into two equal pieces. With a floured rolling pin, roll each piece out into as much of a rectangle as possible, around 1/2 cm thick. Keeping the widest part of the rectangle dough closest to you, spread generously with desired toppings. Carefully roll the dough up away from you, and then cut into 2cm thick slices. Place each scroll onto a greased oven tray and brush with egg. Bake for aprox 20 minutes, or until your scrolls begin to turn golden brown or cheese is bubbling.

Best eaten immediately!

So, a couple of weeks ago, the most fabulous Marianne de Pierres made a request for Cook Club. MdP doesn’t make too many requests. In fact, I pretty much get to do whatever I want for this column. So, of course, I agreed.

Cheesecake. Cheesecake! Of course, why hadn’t I thought of doing one before now? Well, that would probably be because…shock, horror…I’ve never made one. Okay, there was that fairly disastrous attempt for Christmas dessert about 18 years ago, but otherwise – nope. Cheesecake virgin. For a first real attempt, I’m happy with the result, though I’ll make some changes next time (see note at end of this post). It was demolished by my family, who are honest – if at times, harsh! – critics of anything new that comes out of my kitchen.

What You Need:

I used a 22cm spring-form cake tin for this recipe.

Butter to prepare the tin.

Crust

350g Arnott’s Nice biscuits, which is about a pack and a half.

175g butter, melted.

Filling

3 x 250g packs of Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened to room temperature.

¾ cup of caster sugar.

1 teaspoon of lemon zest.

2 tablespoons of lemon juice.

Zest of 1 lime.

Juice of 1 lime.

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

1 tablespoon of plain flour.

3 large eggs.

Topping

2 packets of passionfruit flavoured jelly crystals.

Cream for whipping (or err, if you’re slack and in a hurry and can’t find your piping bag… use the fizzy tinned stuff. Not that I’d know about that. Nope.)

How it’s Done:

Prepare your spring-form pan by greasing it with butter. You can line it with baking paper as well, but I didn’t bother. Then, break up your Nice biscuits and add them to your blender. Give them a quick blend until they resemble breadcrumbs. Slowly add the melted butter. Using your fingers and the back of a spoon, push the biscuit/butter mix over the base and up the sides of the pan, trying to keep as much of a uniform thickness as possible. I had a little mix left over. Refrigerate.

Pre-heat your oven to 175 C, or if you have a fan-forced oven like me, drop the temperature to 160 C. Using an electric mixer (I have a KitchenAid stand mixer. Best. Kitchen Toy. Ever.) on low speed, beat cream cheese and caster sugar until blended. Add the lemon and lime zests and juices, along with vanilla. Mix well. Then add the flour and blend again. Add the eggs one at a time, being careful not to overbeat. Remove prepared crust from the fridge and pour the cheese mixture into it.

Before you put your cheesecake into the oven (middle shelf), add a small bowl of warm tap-water to the bottom shelf. This is to help the crust from drying out too much. Bake for aprox. 35 minutes, or until the centre is *almost* set. Remove from oven and cool completely before carefully removing the rim. Refrigerate for 3 to 4 hours.

While your baked cheesecake is chilling, mix jelly as per packet instructions. Once set, chop roughly with a butter knife and spoon onto the top of your cheesecake. Add passionfruit pulp and decorate with whipped cream around the edges – it hides a multitude of sins! If you do (ahem) use the canned whipped cream, remember it does tend to dissolve quickly.

Confessions: Next time, I’m going to bake cheesecake for 25 to 30 mins rather than the full 35, as it was a teeny bit dry. My oven also has ‘hot spots’, and I had to be careful it didn’t bake faster on one side than the other. I also found I had nowhere near enough mixture compared to how high up the tin I’d made my crust, which is why I added the layer of jelly, rather than just candied citrus like I’d originally planned. I will however, be making it again soon after such a great reaction from my family.

Looking forward to seeing how your versions turn out, Cook Clubbers!