"Lemon Cheesecake"

Why the quotation marks? Because this lemon "cheesecake" doesn't actually have cheese in it.

I love lemon cheesecake. It's my favourite dessert, and sorry chocolate lovers, but lemon tart / cheesecake / drizzle cake over chocolate anytime, hands down.

It also happens that one finds every possible way one can when exam times roll round. In my case, I've taken to Instagram and taking pictures of everything I eat and plan excessively for each meal.

I was craving clotted cream, so that's precisely what I got among my happy alone-shopping time at Fortnum and Masons, along with a whole lot of biscuits / shortbread...did manage to stop myself from getting even more tea when I have about 10 different teas at home despite the fact that I'm leaving London in a month. I don't think I'd be able to finish them unless I drank about five cups of tea a day (I am amounting to that number soon).

Oh I do love this place. And yes I do realise I've gone off a tangent on this cheeseless cheesecake.

I was inspired by Yeo Valley's Lemon Curd Yoghurt and Gu's Lemon Cheesecake Puds, and the clotted cream I bought today (see? All the rant above was relevant after all.) Most my aim of cooking is that it has to be FAST and non-messy. And finding digestives, butter, lemon curd and yoghurt at home, I managed to recreate one of my favourite desserts - in a matter of 7-9 minutes.

Salmon in a Tomato and Basil Purée

Having salmon as dinner has been the easiest, no fuss fish meal been made in the house of Netley, and today I brought one of my salmon recipes to Bath on my visit to A.

I can't believe how quickly this term has gone by. Autumn term is supposed to drag on, supposed to make people feel like they can't wait to go home, feel like Christmas is never going to come soon enough.

And yet, this year before I know it it's December. Before I know it there are Christmas advertisements everywhere (please see John Lewis' Christmas ad) excuses can now be evoked for watching movies like Four Christmases and Love Actually (the ultimate must-watch festive movie of the year). And of course Christmas markets.

One of the reasons why I shamelessly made my third train journey this term, to go to the Bath Christmas market. Hot mulled wine, steak burgers, hot chocolate with Baileys shot, first mince pie of the year with hot custard.

I feel so fat.

And purchases, pomegranate and blackcurrant balsamic vinegar, and truffle oil. A 'flying' cow to hang in the corridor of Netley. Early Christmas presents whee.

For the few times in my life this year I am actually feeling the festivity in the air and actually looking forward to a warm, happy Christmas.

Ants On Sticks

I am blaming T, my amazing flatmate, for my belly and the fat I must be carting around on my body each day. My amazing flatmate who came back from LA laden with edible goods, including:

All hail the massive Costco size Skippy Peanut. I also have a packet of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups a day. And nope my body won't tell lies for me. So I dragged myself off to the gym tonight after a binge-eating weekend and came home to have a bowl of soup, spinach, and Ants on Sticks.

My rule of eating Ants on Sticks: I only eat one raisin at a time. One bite for each raisin. I know, OCD.

I don't really remember eating them as a child, probably because I did use to be one of the pickiest eaters and would refuse to eat both peanut butter and celery. Good thing I realised I was missing out before too late. I am now officially addicted to this snack, and the feeling that I am consuming "negative calories" thus being really healthy and all that.

Not.

P.S. My Lemon whatever it was below actually received positive responses from my flatmates, and one Saturday evening, for reasons that will not be mentioned, we dipped it all in condensed milk and at it all up, every single slice. Guess it didn't turn out too bad after all.


Not like you'd really need one, but 

Lemon I-Don't-Know-What-It-Is

You know when something just goes wrong with your baking and you can't stop poking at it, tasting it, chopping off bits to taste it, eat a whole chunk to see if that makes any difference, add stuff to it, pop it back in the oven, then keep opening and closing the oven door and still not be able make it better?

That's what happened to me today.

I don't really know what went wrong. If I did it wouldn't have done would it. The only reason could be that I forgot to add in eggs and poured the batter back out to add the eggs before putting it back in. But I don't know, surely it wouldn't have made that much of a difference.

Brown sugar and butter creamed together is heaven. The taste, the smell, the sight of it. If you heat this and add condensed milk you get toffee.

Batter. Oh gosh I hate my crappy camera, I wish wish wish I hadn't left my G10 at home in Hong Kong. I'll be back in less than a month. In less than a month it will be Christmas eve. In 6 months I will be done with University. #scarythoughts

Have been cooking to destress. I made a Salmon Quiche / Pie the day before yesterday which luckily had better results than this. And for dinner today: N, who used to never be able to cook anything in his life except a cheese omelete, made a huge pot of Japanese curry. I stole some, poached an egg and added some celery (I was originally going to have "ants on sticks", that plan went out of the window).

So no recipe since "Lemon and Honey Bread" turned into "Lemon Whatever", but instead here are two HIMYM Season 7 Episode 10 lines which have been looping in my head: Just because something has to be said, doesn't mean something has to be heard. Just because you did bad things, doesn't mean you're a bad person. I wonder how many hearts these two lines have touched.

Wisdom Teeth and After

I had my wisdom teeth taken out today. Two. If you don't want to know the gory details skip the rest and go onto the next paragraph. What hurt most during it was actually the four massive anaesthetic needles that got stuck into my gums, the rest was okay, just a lot of drilling and whirring etc involved. The one on the top was simple enough but the one on the bottom jaw was kind of at a 60 degree angle to upright, and part of its roots were embedded in my jawbone. Basically what happened next was part of my gum was cut through so my dentist could chisel off a bit of bone to take the tooth out. Okay enough of that.

I have top-up analgesic (ooh that's a cool word, basically it means to stop the pain) pills which had to be taken before 1.30pm otherwise my wound (which is still bleeding) would hurt like hell, and I was told I had to have food before. So I threw together the quickest yet most edible food in my disabled state in record time. I found some cooked leftover rice in the fridge, and along with that some chicken stock pots. I boiled some water, threw everything into a saucepan, stirred, stirred and stirred and half an hour later I had congee ready to eat.

I used to hate plain congee when I was a kid. And to this day I'm still quite picky about congee - if it's literally just rice and water i will refuse to eat it. The chicken stock added some flavour into it without actually having to chop up a whole chicken, plus I wouldn't have been able to bite into any meat anyway.