Mango-Lime Cheesecake Bars

I have wanted to make this cheesecake for a while now. I am proud to say this is my own recipe. I did use guidelines from another fruit cheesecake(which I've made and it is delish) just for measurements, but the concept was completely my own. My inspiration for this mango lime cheesecake came from an episode of the cooking show "Mexican Made Easy", where Marcela Valladolid was making galaxy fruit pops and talking about how in Mexico, there are street carts that sold fresh mangoes with chili and lime to squeeze on top. I remembered after that when I was in high school I would go to this local Hispanic supermarket with my grandpa sometimes and they sold these fruit lollipops covered in chili and lime.

So I got to thinking and came up with this cheesecake. Cheesecake is an amazing blank canvas for many different flavor combinations, and because the flavors of mango, lime and chili pair so nicely together I might as well give it a try. Also, it has been excessively hot in Southern California (where I live) the past few days, a cold fresh fruit cheesecake sounded very refreshing. So here it is, my mango-lime cheesecake bars with a graham cracker chili crust.

Caramel Apple Upside Down Cake

Remember when I said I had lots of left over caramel from the other night, well I found this recipe for a caramel peach upside down cake, but since I also had a couple apples I decided to make it a Caramel apple upside down cake!

The recipe does have its own caramel recipe included, but I just used the cake batter part and used my own caramel

yom kippur & apple crostatas

It was Yom Kippur this past weekend (fri night-sat night) and as part of the holiday, we fast for that 24 hour period and no work is meant to be done. Once the sun has set on the second night, it is customary to have a big dinner to break the fast, which my family did. It is hard to have a dinner prepared when you are not supposed to be cooking during the day, so my go-to recipes are easy and mainly make-ahead dishes.

I'm only going to be posting about the dessert I made, but if anyone is interested about the main courses I made a variety of salads: spinach salad, curried chicken salad, egg salad, and potato salad. The chicken, potatoes, and eggs can be cooked the night before and the rest of the ingredients can be mixed in minutes before guests arrive.

The dessert I made, an apple crostata is basically a free-form tart. This recipe comes from my favorite chef, Giada De Laurentiis, with a few additions of my own. I love this dessert because it is rustic and virtually impossible to mess up. It is free-form, meaning you can shape it however you want, and it will always look yummy.  I also made a quick caramel sauce to drizzle on top.

Recipes and how-to pictures below!

First timer!!

Last night was Rosh HaShana, which is the Jewish new year. It is now the year 5771 according to the Jewish calendar.  My family celebrates with a big dinner so I was in charge of the cooking and baking.

The Menu:
-round challah, which is customary for the new year instead of a braided one.
-gefilte fish with sliced carrots (yuck, i've never been a fan)
-romaine salad with a homemade vinaigrette
-herb-roasted Chicken
-roasted carrots and baby red bliss potatoes

Dessert: 
-sweet noodle kugel
-rugelach

-chocolate babka
-& of course apples and honey!

I was only able to take picture of the rugelach on my cell as i was taking them. In the future I promise to remember to use my digital camera. Recipes & pictures after the jump!