An exciting announcement - or two! :)

A few spreads from the first feature.
All images © Katie Quinn Davies and Delicious Magazines/New Life Media

© Katie Quinn Davies

A quick little blog post today to make an exciting announcement, strike that actually it'll be two announcements, but I'll be back in the morning with the second, which is the winner of the Barbecue Book  (along with one or two extra goodies thrown in), I just need to print out all the amazing replies, cut them out and stick them in a hat!

On that note thanks so, so much for all the great comments, I found them very insightful to read through and was very touched at how much effort a lot of you put into each one. It's a particularly interesting read for me at the moment as I had the momentous occasion yesterday of taking the very last shot for my book. I shot most of them back in October last year, but over the past while I got to looking at one or two of them and decided to re-shoot about 10 shots (being the eternal (annoyingly) perfectionist that I am. Anyway they are now all shot (WooHoo!) and I am currently head down in the design stage which will last 2 weeks and I am back into 'normal' shooting again.

Which on that latter note leads me to the purpose of this post in the first place! **Drumroll** so I am thrilled to announce that last year I was asked by Valli Little – the one and only amazing food editor at Delicious Magazine, if I would like to become a regular monthly contributor to the magazine? and I said, well "Ahem… let me think about it… Yes!" So going forward as of this Wednesday (when the March edition officially goes one sale – contributors will have their copy by now) I'll be doing an eight page feature every month, featuring 5-7 recipes based around a specific theme. First off it's 'Brunch for Friends'. The magazine goes on sale this Wednesday (15th) but you can order copies of Delicious here and follow their Facebook page here. http://www.facebook.com/delicious magazine

Another thing I wanted to mention is thanks too for all the amazing image submissions I have and am currently receiving for my USA feature. It'll be going up around the end of March (sadly book and work commitments prevent me from getting it up any earlier) but please keep sending me images. I have a load of Coney Island ones so best off to maybe not send any with that subject matter, any West Coast or Mid West shots would be great or Southern ones would be fab too. Keep em' coming, deadline for submissions will be the end of Feb.

Finally the sun shone for a few hours in Sydney yesterday ~ we are having a DREADFUL Summer :( as part of the book re-shoots, I shot a pizza recipe I wasn't happy with first time round, so to celebrate the final shot being taken we decided to crack open a bottle of the good stuff and enjoy it over lunch in the sun whilst it hung around for about 2 hours before the rain came again. This is a very simple recipe for a Tomato Bruschetta I made using the remaining pizza dough I had left over. There is nothing nicer that beautiful, flavoursome ripe tomatoes salted, and served with good balsamic on a crispy, thin pizza base. A great simple Summer lunch.

Seeing as it's Valentines Day tomorrow (ahhhhhh smooch smooch xxxxx) I thought too I'd post up a recipe for my Mum's Lemon Cheesecake (I ate this by the bucket load when I was a kid). BTW you'll need to make it the night before impressing your loved one with your amazing baking skills ;) 

I'll be back tomorrow with the book winner! :)

Cheers

K

Tomato bruschetta

  

For the pizza base:

1 kg (2.2lbs) 7 cups pizza flour

(Caputo Molino Tipo 00 if you can get your hands on it)

Pinch caster sugar

Pinch salt

6 tablespoons olive oil

2 cups (500ml) water

1 tablespoon & 1 teaspoon powdered, dry yeast

For the topping:

6 large vine-ripened tomatoes, de-seeded and cut into half then quarters

Good pinch sea salt flakes

Freshly ground black pepper

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Handful fresh basil

Top quality, aged balsamic vinegar 

Sift flour into a large bowl, make a well in the centre into which add all the other ingredients in the order listed above, using a spoon or fork whisk gently the wet ingredients in the centre then gradually incorporate the outer flour into the centre, then using clean hands continue to form a dough. Knead firmly for 5 minutes, stretching dough as you go and ensuring all flour is incorporated. Place kneaded dough into a lightly floured large bowl, cover with a damp tea-towel and leave in a warm place to rise for 1 hour.

Meanwhile to prepare the tomatoes, place cut tomatoes into a medium-sized bowl and drizzle with a good glug of EVOO, season with a decent pinch of sea salt flakes (I use probably about 1/2 teaspoon, maybe a little more) and coat tomatoes thoroughly. Transfer to the fridge for 1 hour to macerate.

After 1 hour dough should have doubled or tripled in size. Turn out onto a floured surface and cut into 6 or 8 equal-sized pieces, gently form into balls. Place pieces you want to freeze for a later date in individual freezer bags and store in the freezer for up to one month.

Roll out dough on a floured surface – this dough is super elastic and generally very easy to work with so it makes the thinnest pizza base. Roll out to your desired thickness and top with the half tomatoes.

Cook in a pizza oven or on a pizza stone in the oven. To create you own pizza stone, grab a piece of 3mm granite stone from a tile shop and use this in place of a conventional shop-bought pizza stone.

Scatter the remaining tomatoes over the cooked bruschetta, season well with freshly ground black pepper and drizzle with best quality aged balsamic

Note - This makes enough dough for 12 individual 20cm bases. I normally make this quantity every few weeks and freeze what I have left over so it's ready to go the next time I want to make pizza bases.

- - - - - - - - - 

Mum’s old-fashioned lemon cheesecake with
macerated strawberries

  

For the cheesecake

200g  (1¾ cups) digestive biscuits

100g butter, melted

1 standard packet lemon jelly granules

2 lemons

150g (2/3 cup) cream cheese, sieved

150g (2/3 cup) cottage cheese

100g caster sugar

150ml (½ cup) whipped cream

For the macerated strawberries:

1 punnet fresh strawberries, hulled, washed and sliced into quarters

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 tablespoon caster sugar

Small handful fresh mint leaves.

METHOD

Place digestive biscuits into a heavy freezer bag (double up if you like to avoid ripping) and using a rolling pin bash the biscuits up to a fine texture resembling fine crumbs – you can do this in a food processor if you prefer. Melt butter in a microwave or in a small pot over medium heat and mix with the biscuit crumbs.

Press biscuit/butter mix into a non-stick, fluted loose-bottomed tin measuring 28cm/2cm deep (11”/1.5”), or into 8-10cm (3.5-4”) individual tins and place in fridge to chill for 1 hour.

Meanwhile add ½ cup boiling water into jug, add the jelly granules and dissolve, then add the lemon juice, stir and chill in the fridge for 1.5-2 hours until almost set.

Place cream cheese into the bowl of a stand mixer and using the paddle attachment, beat on high speed for 10 minutes to soften and whip up the cheese until soft. Add the sieved cottage cheese and caster sugar and continue to beat for a further few minutes. The mixture should be soft with a few tiny lumps from the texture of the 2 combines cheeses.

Add the lemon jelly liquid from the fridge and whisk together lightly to combine before pouring into the pre-chilled biscuit base/s.

Return to the fridge to chill overnight or until the top is set and just firm to the touch.

To macerate the strawberries; add all ingredients to a small bowl and stir to combine, chill for 2 hours in fridge before severing alongside the pre-prepared cheesecake.

Note: in the pic above, I have cut individual cakes out of the one larger one, to do this just use a round cooking cutter.

Toot toot!!!! after lots of tearing up pieces of paper and scrunching them up before sticking them in a hat, my hubby Mick pulled out the winner tonight - which is: *Drumroll*.... Susan in the Boonies 
Susan, please send me a mail with your details and I'll get the book and other goodies out to you asap. Thanks again to everyone of the 100 comments, fab food for thought there, really wonderful feedback. xx