Cheesecakes and chicken

If there's any dessert out there that I absolutely love and can never get tired of, it's a cheesecake. I don't have a big sweet tooth, in fact after a little something sweet, (yes that includes chocolates too) I am usually done. But cheesecake is the one thing I can never turn down! I have always wanted to try making them but never really got around to doing it. So this weekend, both Umair and I did just that. 

We had this recipe that we used, but with some adjustments. First of all, it was just a plain cheesecake that we wanted. I am not a huge fan of fruits on my cheesecakes! So there was no cranberry or glaze. For the cake, all the ingredients were the same minus the chocolate. I didn't really feel like chocolates in my cake.  For the crust, we substituted Leibnitz Vollkorn biscuits (German whole grain biscuits) for Graham Crackers because those are not available in Germany. Also, instead of using white chocolate, we used Lindt milk chocolate in the crust (which really enhanced the taste of the crust).

For first timers, I gotta say it turned out quite delish! The cake wasn't as high because we used a big baking dish instead of a springform pan. And we could've probably used more biscuits for the crust. But it was nice and moist and no cracking! We pretty much finished the entire thing in a day! Maybe time to buy a springform pan and start trying to make different kinds of cheesecakes?!

While we are at the topic of cooking and experimenting, we also experimented with chicken a little yesterday. Well, it was Umair's recipe. We can call it Minty Chicken with Peas for naming purposes. Basically, stir-fry chicken and peas with spices of your choice (we used: red chilli powder, salt, garlic and ginger powder, oregano and rosemary) and once chicken was almost done, Umair suggested throwing in yogurt mixed with mint chutney and sour cream and voila...yummy minty chicken! 

Apart from being a testing and trying recipes weekend, it was also the Oscar weekend! Actually, more so an Oscar Monday morning for me. Argo winning = complete awesomeness!! I have seen 5 out of the 9 nominated best movies (not seen: Amour, Lincoln, BotSW and Les Miserables) and was really rooting for Argo. It was a little baffling though that they did not nominate Ben Affleck for Best Director! I really want to see Amour. Also, Adele's performance was brilliant and so happy she won!