chocolate peanut butter cheesecake

yep, all that in one glorious cake. the recipe is from nigella lawson, but it's not because of her recent troubles that i wanted to make it. i saw one of her shows sometime in april and decided this something one must try. but, can you believe, peanut butter is not a staple at our grocery stores, nor are chocolate chips! i managed recently to make a trip to behnford's to stock up some of these rarities.

cast members

not pretty, but once the machine had done its work the smooth silky ooey goodness...seriously, it was so good ate some just as is (ok, maybe a tiny bit more than "some"), definitely made sure there was something left in the bowl to be licked...

the recipe calls for one 23cm/9" tin, but i had planned to take some to work, leave some for certain someone and send some to his mom, so i divided the batter into 3 15cm/6" tins.

it had been a good idea to taste some of the filling as there was plenty for the smaller tins, and there was going to be a topping as well

did shorten the baking time a bit, this is after the first bake sans the topping.

the topping...yep, needed to lick this bowl too...

after the second bake. the smell was amazing but the cakes needed cooling down and a night in the fridge...

this one was left with certain someone, he had some with coffee from his favorite mug (from fishs eddy).

the cake needs refrigeration and therefore maybe isn't the best of summer treats.

i want to say something to the weather man. if you say it's going to be a rainy day, you better make sure it's a rainy day and not sunny and well above our normal summer temps. only a crazy person (or someone with air-conditioning) would heat the oven on a 27C/80F day. the indoor temp ended up being 31C with no relief from keeping the windows open all night. 

the moon & garden this morning

there it was, huge, sort of yellowish. more importantly, i remembered it was supermoon and went out to capture it.

it was miraculously light for a while, before the clouds came and ruined my view of the moon. i did go out later in the evening but only got glimpses of the moon behind the clouds passing by...

 there's been a lot of commotion at the shack lately (the county is digging for water mains) and you could see that this poor deer was rather confused of the changed scenery. i'm glad she didn't make a stop at my veggie patch!

this lilium martagon isn't doing so great. first, this spot used to be more shady but because of the digging for the water mains they had to cut down huge trees that cast a shadow to this spot. second and i don't know where they came but there's been a few uninvited guests in my lilies, namely scarlet lily beetles. nasty little buggers.

these blue babies are doing great, they pop up every summer, and are pretty as can be, campanula rotundifolia, the bluebell.

potatoes are doing great, no bugs (so far). will be interesting to see what the crop will be this year.

earlier in the summer i noticed that something is eating the leaves of my beets. wasn't sure whether it was rabbits or deer or maybe snails, but i figured a net of some sort (this is the same kind we use for berry bushes) would provide some protection. so far the nibbling has stopped. this year i'm growing carrots, parsnips, parsley root, yellow and red beets, and possibly a surprise because i yet again was too lazy to make notes on what i planted and where...

the corn isn't doing so great this year, hopefully they start growing soon or they won't be done when autumn comes. 

the shack sits partly on bedrock and they had to blast some of the rock in order to bury the water mains deep enough so that they don't freeze in the winter. certain someone had the crew bring the rubble to be used to extend the upper part of yard. the idea is to form a ledge of the blocks of rock, the crew will bring machines to do that. i'm already thinking what to plant on the ledge...

sigh. i'll just be quiet now.

the peony just is the most beautiful of flowers, especially the pink one. the pink ones have been in the garden for 20 odd years, their location isn't the most convenient but i don't dare move them. i planted the white one (actually 4 of them) about 5 yrs ago and this is the first time i get a blossom on any of them...

as luck would have it...

(she carefully lifts her head to see if anyone is still out there...)

the luck would have it part? the weather, what else! just as i had planned, carefully i might add, to grill some veggies and ambitiously try to do the same to a couple of nice steaks, the heavens open and it not just rains but pours down...

plan B was in order, there was the oven...

the veggies got chopped, the mushrooms filled with a mixture of cream cheese, minced mushroom stubs and fried bacon and topped with some more bacon. i tried a new cut of bacon here and it sort of worked. the traditional strip would have worked better.  

as the oven was on i decided to put the asparagus there as well. 200C with fan on for 15 mins. placed the other veggies on another baking tray, they cooked for 20 mins.

oozing goodness...

lemon juice for the asparagus

minced some lovage and thyme for the other veggies

i'm loving fennel right now

the steak got the old and tried method of pan frying. done my home work on how to get it right on the stove at the shack, not sure i'd been as lucky with my spanking new (coal) weber.

those two seem to have endless stories to tell each other...

ps. if you've ever mixed windows, chrome, nokia booklet and an apple apparatus you might have some sort of idea of my IT desperation during the past several weeks. whether i actually manage to post this online remains to be seen...

happy mother's day!

happy b'day little brother!