This probably looks really complicated. It’s not. It’s easy, actually, although you do have to mix up and bake the cheesecake in a springform pan. The toppings are ready-made pestos (sun dried tomato and the regular basil types) with some nuts (those are hazelnuts you see, pine nuts would be fine). The ingredients in the cheesecake are readily available.

It can be served on a platter and guests can use a small knife to spread the mixture onto crackers, or it can be served as a first course. No one in my circle of friends does a sit-down first course, so I’d opt for the self-serve version. The crackers you see here at the Trader Joe’s pita bites. They’re awfully good, and perfect for this dish.

The cheesecake is cream cheese, ricotta, goat cheese, eggs and sour cream. That’s absolutely IT. It’s baked for about 25 minutes, and we had it served to us warm, at the cooking class with Tarla Fallgatter.

The other nice thing about this appetizer is that it can be made a day ahead. I always like to find things that are make-ahead, don’t you? You bake, cool, and chill, then pull it out an hour before serving and add the toppings. If you don’t like pesto, use tapenade, or even grilled bell peppers and pine nuts.

If you’d like to do something different, drizzle the top with a little bit of honey. The cheesecake has a very light texture – it’s not like a dessert cheesecake at all. Do try this one.

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A year ago: Yellow Crookneck Casserole
Two years ago: Schnecken Rolls

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My friend Cherrie has this cute Santa sitting on her kitchen counter, so I snapped a photo of him. I’m not doing much cooking today as we’re going to the home of relatives. All I have to take is a gluten-free dessert (which I made yesterday, and is mostly for my cousin Gary) – an apple crisp. If it’s blog-worthy, I’ll share it next week sometime. Meanwhile, cherish your family and friends, and celebrate the birth of Christ.

And in case you haven’t seen this cute video, just about the cutest ever, watch this youtube video showing a techie person’s explanation of the birth of Jesus. It’s very clever.

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Back a couple of years ago I wrote up a post about this pepper stuff. And I’ve made it numerous times in the interim, always enjoying it very much. This time I made it with red onions and with dark raisins (rather than golden). I also used Splenda so my DH wouldn’t need to be concerned about how much of it he ate. And I forgot to add the tomatoes. Oh well. Not important since, as usual, it was so SO good. This relish really goes with just about any kind of meat. Originally the recipe was an Escoffier one, but it’s simple to make. It would make a great relish to go on sandwiches too – I’d just chop it up a bit before putting it on bread. This time I served it with leftover Italian sausage and leftover grilled chicken. And I took a new picture of it. My previous one is kind of bland looking. The dark raisins add a counterbalance to the photo. Do try it on any kind of meat sandwiches – not just as a side scoop on some baked or grilled meat.

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Of all the photos I took of our trip to the South Pacific, I think these in this post, from in and around Milford Sound, and Fiordland National Park, are my favorites. Hope you enjoy them.

One of the most visited attractions in New Zealand is Milford Sound. And although I’d glanced at a map of the south island, I had no idea how remote and rugged the western side of the island really was. There are few roads, and what few there are, are narrow, windy and long. All of the above photos were taken from a moving bus – so they’re a little bit blurry.

We drove through some of the south island, going from Christchurch down the middle, sort of, to Queenstown. On the western side of the south island is a protected area – called Fiordland National Park.  It’s a long, steep and jagged mountain range with very few access roads. Most of the access is from the sea on the far side of those mountains.

Look at the blue of that water! Milford Sound – as I may have explained before – isn’t really a sound, but a fiord (in Scandinavia they spell it fjord – in the South Pacific it’s called a fiord). However, when someone informed the government, it had been named for so long the powers-that-be decided to leave it as a Sound. A fiord is an inlet with steep, sheer sides. A sound is an inlet too, but it’s wider than a fiord. We careened our way (by bus) from Queenstown to just get to the inner end of the Milford Sound. Those of you who are athletes will know that hiking the difficult, sometimes treacherous paths of the Milford Track, is a big global rite of passage for hikers. We didn’t get to see the end of the Track itself, although it was right where we stopped at the inner end of the Sound. People who trek  may only walk in one direction, Glade Wharf to Milford Sound, during the booked walking season (late October to late April), with a maximum of 40 independent walkers permitted to start the track each day. Periodic huts have been erected for hikers to sleep and rest. The hike takes several days. We have several friends who have done all or part of it.

It’s about 295 km (about 200 miles) from Queenstown to Milford Sound. Did I tell you that the road was curvy? And that I didn’t feel good nearly all day? Busses, curvy roads and me don’t get along very well, sad to say. Because the road is remote, 2-lane and curvy, it takes many hours to get there – I think it took us about 5 1/2 hours each way. We did make a few stops for photos.

Once at the Sound, we took an hour or two boat ride – out to the entrance of the Sound itself. Stunningly beautiful the full 365­ degrees. We were there on a clear, sunny day too (which doesn’t happen but one in every three days).

The national park provides plenty of short walks and boardwalk trails. This was a particularly beautiful one with the reflections.

That’s the color straight out of my camera. No wizardry involved. Just mother nature working at her finest!

And I did tell you, didn’t I, that there were lots of curvy roads to make one’s stomach do a lurch!

Isn’t that just stunning? You can see why I’d like to go back to New Zealand. Maybe in a car, with me at the wheel, I wouldn’t have spent most of the day wondering if my last meal was going to stay down.

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This little town of Lyttleton isn’t exactly a destination for tourists  – you can see it in the top photo on the left . . . and I didn’t even take any pictures of the town itself – we didn’t stop – just drove through. When cruise ships ply the waters in and around New Zealand, the closest they can get to Christchurch is the Lyttleton Harbour, about 20-30 miles away from the city. We came up over the small pass of foothills from Christchurch to see this gorgeous view. The water didn’t even look real. It was that color. And crystal clear.

There’s some scotch broom. Somebody introduced broom to New Zealand, some good-minded English housewife, probably, and it has become a blight to the locals. It’s a very invasive plant and takes over where it’s not wanted. Looks lovely, but chokes out the natural foliage and plant life that was growing there just fine, thank you. No more. Farmers can’t stay on top of eradicating it. It just takes over and spreads everywhere.

We stopped beside the road, with barely a place to pull off. My guess is that guests on cruise ships don’t get to go up this little, narrow road. It was so beautiful. Cattle were grazing nearby, and see those wires you see in the foreground? Yes, they were live. One of our group reached out and touched it – ouch!

As you can see, it was a pristine and lovely day in New Zealand. Hardly a cloud in the sky. I’m so glad there wasn’t a cruise ship in port that day we visited. It would have been very out of place. A different kind of blight.

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As part of our walking tour of Christchurch, we walked to one end of town and visited the spectacular Botanic Gardens. They’re open to the public – free – and it’s a huge place. We were so impressed with the Gardens. Of course, it’s springtime in New Zealand right now, so the trees and shrubs, ground cover and grasses were just at their peak of bright green and growing.

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Sorry I don’t have a photo of the whole cake. This was from a cooking class with Phillis Carey, and it was phenomenal. This may have been my favorite item from a double-whammy cooking class my friend Cherrie and I went to. Two cooking instructors, both teaching recipes for a full meal. Our portions, of course, weren’t huge. Just enough to get a sufficient taste, but oh, were we ever full when we walked out of that class!

We watched Phillis make this torte – it’s a light-as-a-feather sponge cake with chocolate chips that sink to the bottom. And flavored with amaretti (the almond-flavored Italian meringue cookies), and whipped cream flavored with the liqueur, Amaretto. The cake is mostly like any other sponge cake (where you whip up the whites and gently fold them into the egg-rich cake batter). This one just has the cooking crumbs folded in too, plus the chocolate chips. Don’t use chop-up-yourself chocolate in this – you need to use ready-made chocolate chips. And do slice it with a serrated knife, okay? Don’t refrigerate the cake – it’s okay to make it one day ahead. It also freezes well. You’ve gotta make this cake if you enjoy almond flavorings. And chocolate.

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A year ago: Zov’s Lentil Salad
Two years ago: Seafood Bisque
Three years ago: Almond Custard

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The toasted baguette slices have been rubbed with an orange – the skin – and the orange peel/oil sticks to the rough edges on the bread. At left is a mound of curd ricotta (it’s whole-milk ricotta that still has some of its curds intact) with a mixture of orange honey and truffle oil on top – and some cracked pepper.

If you need an appetizer that you can make ahead, here’s an easy one. It does require just a bit of last-minute assembling, but it’s not difficult or time consuming. The original recipe for this came from Locanda Verde Restaurant in TriBeCa in NYC. How Diane Phillips (cookbook author and cooking instructor) got it, I don’t know. Maybe there’s a cookbook out? Ah yes, there is: Andrew Carmellini, the chef/owner of the restaurant has written a cookbook: Urban Italian: Simple Recipes and True Stories from a Life in Food.

The appetizer is a subtle tasting one – mild, actually. Understand what I’m saying here – it hasn’t got blowout flavors, but it has lovely nuances of orange. And softness from the ricotta. And a bit of umami from the truffle oil. Give it a try over the holidays. But I wouldn’t serve it along side an appetizer with huge flavors – that would overpower this one. Make it the appetizer of the evening. I’d serve it with Prosecco, that light Italian sparkling wine. Or champagne, of course. Or serve it as an appetizer for a brunch with a mimosa!

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A year ago: Apple Raisin Custard Cake
Two years ago: Spiced Peaches
Three years ago: Chicken and Dumplings (oh, is this yummy)

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Back to some travel stories  . . .  After spending several days in Sydney, some folks left for home and 8 of us went on to New Zealand. Having never been there and having seen little more than photos of the Milford Sound and plenty in travel books, I didn’t know what to expect. So I shot a few photos from the air. There is some haze, but what’s visible there is green. And more green. And more green. Darker green, lighter green, lakes and water. Lovely.

Christchurch isn’t exactly a huge city – a small city, I’d say. We stayed in a hotel right smack dab in the middle of town so it was easy to walk anywhere.

There was a big earthquake in Christchurch in September and it did some damage to older structures. A unique thing about New Zealand is that the island is right on top of two Tectonic plates, so the island is very prone to earthquakes. But this 2010 one was quite serious. There were no injuries, partly due to NZ’s extremely strict building codes. I remember reading about it in September, that structural damage was minimized because the country has insisted on earthquake-proof codes for both commercial buildings and homes.

In the picture above you can’t see any damage – they’d repaired what minimal problems there were, but just a few blocks away here’s what we saw:

This is an old church – Presbyterian I think – that was built long before civil engineers knew what to do to build more earthquake resistant structures. They expected to be able to repair this church, but meanwhile they have props surrounding the building to keep it from crumbling even more.

Here’s a sculpture (no, it’s not earthquake damage) in a small Christchurch park – it’s to honor and commemorate 9/11 and it’s a loose replica of some of the girders and beams from the World Trade Center, showing the one that looks similar to a Christian cross.

We criss-crossed our way all around Christchurch. It’s a quaint little city and easy to get around in. And we were quite impressed with all of their parks. Just like the Aussies, the NZlanders set aside more than ample (at least by American standards) park lands for everyone to enjoy.

Here’s another photo of an older Christchurch building with props holding it up. Holding it in place.  I loved the striking phone booths there. I don’t know if it’s a national thing, or just in Christchurch, but the phone booths are somewhat similar to British ones. Cute. Red.

We’re losing phone booths here in this country. What with cell phones so readily available, one can be hard pressed to even find a phone booth here in the U.S.

Here, at right, was a sign we saw somewhere in Christchurch showing two of the indigenous birds (kiwi and uhm. . . what is that other bird?). Kiwi birds are not exactly cute. They’re flightless, though. Did you know that most larger birds in Australia and New Zealand are flightless? Because those two countries were not destroyed during the Ice Age, the animals lived through it – they are almost prehistoric and they don’t have predators. Hence their wings have, through evolution, been lost. We never saw a live kiwi while we were there, sad to say.

Here’s a little something to give you a laugh. In New Zealand no one refers to one’s derrier as buns. Instead, they’re sweet rolls  or sandwiches. Our guide, Marilyn, pointed out this little cafe sign, saying that she really did, but didn’t understand it, why Americans always think it’s so funny!

Sure enough, we all laughed.

Christchurch has a very efficient rail system – considering that it’s a small city, we were all impressed.

This trolley car seems like it’s right out of the 1940’s or so, doesn’t it?

Both Australia and New Zealand have plenty of Victorian style homes. I tried to take a whole lot of suburban home photos from our different rides around cities in both countries, but all of them were blurred. This one, this cute little, narrow Victorian, was just a few blocks from downtown Christchurch. I just thought it was adorable. Not that I’d want to live in one, but this happened to be a particularly attractive Victorian.

By the time we had walked for a couple or so miles around the city and the Botanical Gardens (a post about that tomorrow or the next day), we passed this sign about Ron Mueck, a well-renowned Australian sculptor. A few of our group went to the museum to see the display. The woman you see there (a photo of the sculpture) is a Maori (pronounced mao-ree, and say it real fast). Those who went, exclaimed over the exhibit. The sculptures are very life-like and life-sized too. Amazingly life-like, apparently. Dave’s legs were really hurting him after our long walk, so we didn’t ever get back to see the exhibit.

This photo (right) is from Wikipedia, and shows one of Mueck’s most famous sculptures.

I’d think that would be eerie to be in a museum and come upon that head sculpture!

We did take a bus tour one day. I took a dozen pictures of the Christchurch skyline from the ridge we were on here. Christchurch doesn’t have any particular landmarks, to speak of. But it was so clear and pretty. That’s ocean off in the distance.

And here’s a photo of Marilyn, our wonderful guide. She was speaking there, about the building behind her – Christ’s College – Canterbury, just adjacent to the Christchurch Botanical Gardens.

We watched lots of students walking in and out – all wearing their school (required) uniforms. Much like in Britain.

I think it’s at Oxford, in England, where they’re all required to wear the black flowing robes. Am I right?

There is a stream that meanders through part of Christchurch. I don’t remember its name, but it was so lovely. Made for some good picture-taking.

I mentioned in my earlier post (while we were ON the trip) that we had some fantastic Indian food in Christchurch. It may have been the best Indian food I’ve ever had. It was that good. One of the couples from our trip went with us – they’re from the Midwest and had never had Indian food – period. It was right on Cashel Street – one of the main streets of Christchurch, with the cutest name – The Last Train to India. I had a lengthy conversation with our waiter about different dishes they made – we had butter chicken, some onion kulcha, a lamb dish, another chicken dish, some delicious pilaf rice, and I asked for a vegetable dish. He brought lentils. Now I wouldn’t ordinarily have ordered a carb billed as a “vegetable,” but when it came, what could I say? And oh, was it delicious. For me it may have been the star of the dinner. It was black lentils in a kind of brown gravy. A rich, thick, silky gravy. I asked the waiter to write down the name of this dish – he did, but now I can’t find the little snip of paper it was on. Darn! I remember he said it was a “truck stop” kind of lentil dish – nothing fancy. It was just so, so good. At the end we ordered some ice cream – I think it was coconut. Came out in a kind of log shape. It was delish too. I’d be eating at this restaurant once a week if it were in California! It’s a long flight for an Indian dinner, sadly!

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I know, I know. Most people don’t like Brussels sprouts. But I do, my DH does, and this is such a simple and delicious way to serve them. If you don’t like cooked cabbage, well, then there may be no hope for you. Just skip this recipe.

What this is, is EASY. You halve the Brussels, then cut into thinner yet slices, cook them in a bit of olive oil, add water and butter and cook for just a very few minutes. Then you add in some toasted pine nuts. See? I said it’s easy. And quick. Well, unless you need to toast pine nuts first – it’s faster to do them in a small dry frying pan (nonstick), but you’ve got to watch them very, very carefully. Once they’ve warmed up in the pan, they can go from normal raw to burned in a matter of about 15 seconds or less. This recipe came from Phillis Carey.

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A year ago: Cranberries – everything you’ve always wanted to know about them
Three years ago: Gulliver’s Creamed Corn

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