Cheap and Cheerful: Double Chocolate Cheesecake

To be honest, I'm not really a dessert or pudding man. Give me a nice salad - any day of the week. But my girlfriend is like most women and has a real sweet tooth. She loves her chocolate and sweets. So I thought for a change, we would look for a desert recipe that would be appealing to both of us, as we never plan a desert in our weekly shop. We both agreed that we liked cheesecake, So decided on a double chocolate cheesecake recipe that I found on the on the BBC Good Food website. I have always wanted to to prepare a cheesecake but thought that it would be quite complicated. That couldn't be further from the truth. This cheesecake is probably the most simple recipe I have ever tried. It took me about 20 minutes to prepare and all that was left was to leave to set in the fridge for a few hours. I hope you enjoy. 

What you need:

175g digestive biscuits

50g butter melted

300g cream cheese

200g mascarpone

300g milk chocolate, melted

100g dark chocolate, melted

What to do:

Crush the biscuits and mix with the melted butter. Press the biscuit mixture into the base of 20cm springform tin. Mix the cream cheese with the mascarpone. Fold the milk chocolate into the cream cheese mix and then stir in the dark chocolate so that it looks streaky. Spoon into the tin, level the top and chill for two hours or overnight.

Happy cooking and enjoy!

French Onion Soup

Soup soup soup. All I can say is that I love them. All sorts of soup as well, tinned soup, cup a soups, homemade soups or veg and meat broths. You name it, I will have most likely tried it. When I was looking for a good soup recipe, I found a recipe for the classic "French onion soup", from a bunch of recipe cards, that I had bought a few years ago. The soup was not only delicious but it only cost about 25 pence per serving.  Pretty cheap, hey? Yeah that's what I thought, so here it is. 

What you need:

900g onions

40g butter

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp plain flour

2.4 liters pints of vegetable or beef stock

150ml red wine (optional)

salt and pepper

What to do:

I'm not going to lie but the first part of this recipe will take a while: First of all you will need to peel and finely slice all of the onions, but then that is about it for preparation. Now heat the butter and olive oil in a large pan and stir in the onions. Cook gently over a low heat, stirring frequently for 30-45 minutes or until the onions are softened and turn a pale straw colour. Right then, sprinkle over the flour and cook gently for 1 minute. Add the stock, and wine if using. Bring to the boil, season with salt and pepper, then reduce the heat and simmer for 25-30 minutes. Depending on the thickness you would like for your soup, add 1 to 2 tsp of dissolved  corn flour and simmer for another five minutes, or until desired thickness is reached. Now the soup is ready, serve with a bread of your choice. Even a homemade garlic bread if you would like, hope you enjoy.

Happy cooking and enjoy!