Fondue with Steamed Veggies

I am back after a month long vacation in India and a week of absolute inertia - a combination of jet lag and complete exhaustion from travel, unpacking, washing, putting away stuff - you know how it goes and contrived though it is, I would love a no strings attached vacation right now - in an beautiful island - in a tranquil and exquisitely decorated suite overlooking aquamarine waters - where i sleep as I wish, have massages aplenty and lots and lots of wonderfully nourishing vegetarian food brought to me for the asking or on a pre-planned schedule - a yoga and dance workout when I feel like it or I may most likely prefer a dip in that azure water - Someone to towel my hair dry and paint my nails as I read some books I've been meaning to for a long time... sigh - see - the holiday stupor has not left me one bit!  And this is a very concerted effort to get back to my blog in the hope that I will feel motivated with your comments - so PLEASE leave your comments for me and get me back to reality! Hugs in advance :)

Fondue with Steamed Veggie Platter

Fondue is a very high fat meal. Under normal circumstances makes me cringe at the number of fat calories we consume while eating this highly delicious, yet horrifically caloric meal. Hmm, what to do? How can I have my Fondue and eat it too?

This is when I start becoming an inventor – well I don’t dare claim that this has not been done before. Hardly that! But I think smart ideas cannot be copyrighted, censored or censured since many people have them at different times and when it comes to the gastric pleasures, people do experiment a lot. A typical fondue preparation required Gruyere or Emmentaler cheese (a couple fine Swiss cheese) white wine for the dip.  What we can do is find things to dip in the fondue that are low calories, and help offset the fat of the cheese like, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, peppers, green, red, yellow and orange and avoid meats, bread and other heavy stuff that compound the calorie intake.

If you are craving a chocolate fondue, try a semi sweet, dark chocolate melted with a little sherry or port wine or liqueur like Kahlua. But rather than dip pound cakes, rice crispy treats, or Blondies, restrict yourself to the pleasure of dipping strawberries, crisp apples or pears, nuts like walnuts or almonds.

The moral being, there are certain foods that are meant to be fatty or sugary. While we cannot put up much resistance to them, unless we decide to go vegan and use potato starch to make a stringy dip, the best we can do is control what we dip in these and make it a less guilt-ridden dish.

We love fondues and have always used lightly steamed veggies to dip, but bread has been a part of it which I now wish to avoid.  I have bought the awesomest steamer from India which I used for the veggies. turned out perfect!  

For the Fondue Preparation

1) 1 cup each (or more) of grated Gruyere & Emmentaler cheeses. I did not get Emmentaler yesterday but substituted with Fontina - basically you need cheese that will melt smoothly and easily so I am sure there are other choices.

2) 3 cloves of garlic

3) 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper (optional)

4) 1/4 cup of white wine  (I used a moscato -sweet wine which tasted brilliant in this since it was far too sweet to drink) Again many other kinds of wines will suit - google mama will only be too happy to help ya with your selection :) (this again is optional and can be substituted with 1/4 cup of milk, just to get the melting process started.

5) A pinch of nutmeg

Preparation

On low heat, start the melting process on a regular stove.

If you have a fondue pot, then transfer this into it and have a candle flame underneath to keep the cheeses from thickening - If this happens keep the pot on the stove ready and re melt. 

Go with non-startchy veggies like cauliflower, broccoli, peppers, mushrooms etc... Attack with gusto - it makes for a fun meal when some of us ate standing to get a better swipe of the cheese. The fun also lies in losing your veggies in the cheese. Enjoy and I hope to be back with more.

Happy New Year all and May all your dreams and wishes come true and may you have good health and good food always :)

Celebration Begins With ... A Rainbow Cheesecake

Rainbow Cheesecake

The minute I saw this, I knew I had found the perfect recipe for my baby’s birthday and the perfect post for the day – Now I am not too sure how much of this my little 3 yr. old will consume, but a challenge was what I was seeking, esp. since it is also close to my blog’s 1st anniversary (Please stay tuned on Sept 24th for many wonderful giveaways) I figured it doubled the cause for celebration – I was anxious about making this on my own – So I called upon my dear and sweet friend to ask if she would help me with it – The artist that she is, she was immediately enthused by the challenge and the idea of mixing the colors of the rainbow just right and together we had plenty of fun making this! This is truly a recipe that you would find a LOT easier to make with a friend, daughter or mother because it can be a little overwhelming! Grazie mille, Fla, may not have attempted it without your help and nifty guidance!

This cake contains more fat calories than I can count, but hey, when has there ever been a celebration without a good bit of fat to cheer us up! It also goes against most of the things I strive towards –aka – healthy recipes, but a sliver thin slice would be perfectly ok! So let’s chill on this subject :)

I got my recipe from Macheesmo - I have copied almost verbatim his ingredients and his method of preparation -  Hope you enjoy my pictorial of it so that it will be easy for you to recreate! Enjoy mes amies!

Ingredients

2 Cups graham crackers, crushed (crust)

2 Tablespoons sugar (crust)

6 Tablespoons unsalted butter (crust)

1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon (crust)

1 Pinch Salt (crust)

2 Pounds Cream cheese, room temp

1 1/3 Cups Sugar

2 Teaspoons Vanilla

4 Large Eggs

1Cup Sour Cream

1Cup Heavy Cream

1 Pinch Salt

1 Container Food colors (blue, yellow, green, red)

Preparation

1. Before you get started with the crust, make sure your spring form pan is watertight. I do this by carefully wrapping a few layers of foil on the outside of the pan, working in both directions so water cannot get into the pan. Be careful not to rip the foil or water will get into your cake and ruin it!
2. To make the crust, grind the graham crackers in a food processor until very fine. Then mix crushed crackers, salt, sugar, and cinnamon together in a bowl. Then mix in butter with your clean fingers.
3. Press all but a few tablespoons of the graham cracker mixture into the prepared spring form pan. (Save a bit of the crust mixture in case there are holes later) Press it down firmly in the pan. I like to use a measuring cup for this to make it easy to get around the edges. You should have an even, flat crust.
4. Bake the crust in a pre-heated 350 degrees oven for 10 minutes on a low rack. Remove from the oven and cool completely before continuing. Turn oven temp down to 325.
5. To make filling, cut cream cheese into pieces and add to a mixing bowl. Whip until smooth, maybe 4 minutes. Then add sugar and continue to beat until smooth again, another 4-5 minutes. Next, add salt, vanilla, and one egg at a time, beating briefly between each egg. Finally, beat in the sour cream and heavy cream.
6. Once the mixture is well combined and very smooth, divide it into 6 dishes. Add food coloring to each dish to get the desired colors.
7. Pour colored mixtures into prepared dish with cooled crust. Start with red and pour it right in the center. Continue to build the rainbow by pouring the fillings directly in the center. This will create layers so that each slice has some of each color.
8. Place cheesecake into a baking dish a fill with boiling water about 1 inch up the side of the spring form pan (pray that your dish is waterproof).
9. Bake at 325 degrees in the water bath for one hour and 45 minutes.
10. Turn off the oven, crack the door to the oven, and let the cake cool in the oven for one hour. The slow cooling will help it not crack.
11. Then loosely wrap the dish in foil so the foil isn't touching the top of the cake and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.
12. When ready to remove cake, run a clean narrow knife around the edge of the dish, remove the foil, unlock the spring, and carefully lift off the outer ring.

First steps of preparation

Now the Fun begins - From Second picture on right as you view it to the center

NOTE 1: My oven was obviously either newer or more efficient that the parent site for this recipe! – So I would advise caution and let it bake for 1hr and 30mins as opposed to 1hr and 45 minutes. Luckily, the slightly browned top did nothing to mar the taste or the enjoyment of this cake.

NOTE 2: Although the pictures from my source looks PERFECT, a thicker crust might have worked better to keep the cake together while cutting – I may play around with that the next time

NOTE 3:Keep cake refrigerated overnight – Keep water and a paper towel handy while cutting the cake so that you don’t mess up the colors –

NOTE 4: Not a good idea to travel 25 minutes with this cake unless you have a freezer box/pack in which you can transport it – I took this to my baby’s school and the children liked it, I think what they enjoyed most was delving into the gooey mush that they could so easily make it – but I say not too bad for a first attemptJ

Sending this off to Friday Potluck, at Ekat's Kitchen :)

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