Holiday Season

Unlike last year when I nearly forgot about the holidays, this year it was much clearer that xmas was approaching. Around town I saw a few lights, decorated trees and store workers wearing Santa hats. As ever, the holidays do not hold a religious meaning for me but is an excuse to spend time with friends and eat lots of food. So today's entry is dedicated to more recipes!

Lasagna
Finding lasagna ingredients in Taipei is nearly impossible. You can buy the lasagna sheets in the basement supermarket of Shin Kong by the Taipei City Hall MRT. You can find zucchini there also (and much more expensive ones in Jason's, in the 101 basement). You can get Ricotta at City Super in the SOGO on ZhongXiao Fuxing. Mozzarella is more easily available in regular stores, as are eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes. I could not find spinach anywhere, either fresh or frozen. So I substituted some Chinese greens that looked a similar leafy green for my usual recipe. Everything here is to taste - if you like a lot of cheese, load it on. If you hate mushrooms, leave them out.

• 9 lasagna sheets (boiled or use the no-precook kind)
• meat sauce (choice of meat: turkey, beef, pork, chicken; seasoned with garlic, onions, italian seasoning, crushed red peppers or tabasco)

• ricotta
• 1 egg
• leafy greens, chopped (I prefer spinach, but anything will do)
• mushrooms, sliced
• zucchini, sliced
• parmesan
• mozzarella

1. Prepare meat sauce.
   
2. Mix ricotta, egg, parmesan and leafy greens.
   
3. Layer meat on bottom of 9x13 baking dish.
4. Layer 3 noodles. Top with ricotta mixture. Add sliced vegetables. Sprinkle mozzarella.
   
5. Repeat layers: meat, noodles, cheese, veggies, more cheese.
6. Top with last 3 noodles and top with remaining ingredients.
   
7. Top with lots of mozzarella and a sprinkling of parmesan.
8. Bake according to package instructions. Usually once the mozzarella is melted and slightly browned it is ready. If there is a lot of liquid, it should be visibly bubbling. If preparing ahead of time, you can refrigerate after the previous step. Baking time will increase.
   

Oreo Cheesecake
I usually make a pumpkin cheesecake, but it's impossible to find graham crackers in Taipei. So I used oreo cookies to make a crust and decided to try my hand at an oreo cheesecake instead. One large box of oreos from Wellcome suffices for this recipe (it has 2 rows of cookies), though for a thicker crust you could go for another small package.

14-20 oreo cookies (without the creme filling)
1 T butter
4 packages of cream cheese (nearly 1 kg), softened
1 cup sugar
1 t vanilla
4 eggs
12-15 oreos, broken into quarter pieces

1. Crush oreos (in a plastic bag with your hand or a jar) and then pulverize (in a blender or food processor). Add butter and beat thoroughly.
2. Press into bottom of springform pan and bake for 10 minutes at 165C.
3. Cool in freezer.
4. Beat cream cheese and sugar at medium speed.
5. Add vanilla. Beat eggs in one at a time at low speed.
6. Stir in broken oreos.
7. Spread evenly in pan.
8. Bake 1 hour at 165C.
9. Cool in refrigerator over night (at least 4 hours). Garnish with additional oreos.
   

Optional: For a layered version, after beating in eggs, mix a portion of the mixture with pulverized oreos. Put this dark layer at the base, and then top with the light layer.

Healthy Pumpkin Bread
Since I still had that can of pumpkin to use, I decided to make a loaf of bread. I started making pumpkin bread in college. My original recipe had a lot of sugar and oil. After a few years I decided to cut back and found this recipe. It also uses whole wheat flour for some extra nutrition. If you don't have any, you can just use all white. It turns out moist and flavorful. But most recipes do, as pumpkin is just an excuse to combine cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves.

1 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/4 t soda
1 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1/4 t ginger
1 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
2/3 cup brown sugar, lightly scooped
1/2 cup milk + 1/2 t lemon juice
1 egg
2 T butter, softened
1/2 cup raisins

Mix dry ingredients (up to ginger) in a large bowl. Mix remaining (wet) ingredients in a medium bowl. Mix wet into dry, stirring just until flour is moistened. Pour into 8x4 greased bread pan. Bake at 350 F/175 C for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until done.

Pumpkin Raisin Cake
I had some leftover pumpkin from the bread so used this muffin recipe to make a cake. It was my first time using this particular recipe. It came out ok - next time I would add more spices, and maybe a little more pumpkin.

1 c sugar
1/4 c vegetable oil
1 egg
1/4 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 c milk
1/2 c pumpkin
2/3 c raisins
1/3 c walnuts
1 1/2 c flour
2 t baking powder

Mix all ingredients together. Bake in greased muffin tins at 375 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes or 8x8 glass dish for 35 minutes. Easy, moist, freezes well. Makes one dozen muffins or one cake.

Fresh Mozzarella Dish
I love fresh mozzarella. My sister got me hooked on it when I visited her 6 years ago in Paris. Along with tomatoes and basil and seasoning, you just can't go wrong no matter how you eat it - plain or on a cracker.

Fresh Mozzarella
Tomatoes
Fresh Basil
Fresh ground black pepper
Salt
Olive oil