Does the Affordable Kitchen Trump the Sustainable Kitchen?

I received this question today from NKBA (the National Kitchen & Bath Association):

In this economy, does sustainability need to give way to affordability?

I think there is a reason that, beyond all the "greenwashing" going on by manufacturers and their ad companies, green is so hot.

Americans are looking at the changes in the weather and the predictions by climate scientists. They are listening to our new president who emphasizes global warming and our predicament every chance he gets. They are assessing the excesses of the past and making plans to do better in the future.

Those of us who still have financial resources and secure jobs in the wake of our financial crisis would like to help in putting the country back to work in ways that we can control.

One of those ways is by greening our homes. Remodeling for energy efficiency is smart remodeling because the payback grows every time the cost of energy increases. Making our drafty and inefficient homes more comfortable is a welcome bonus too.

There is great potential that government incentives will also flow to those who remodel for energy efficiency. I think that will grow. I don't see the logic in similar incentives for kitchen remodeling, other than appliance rebates.

Back to NKBA's question: I think that kitchen remodeling will give way to remodeling for energy efficiency. Kitchen remodeling dollars will shrink, but green remodeling dollars will grow - a lot. Kitchens will still be done, but I predict that the excessive kitchens of the last years are a thing of the past. Kitchens to come will be simpler, less ostentatious, and less expensive. They will have sustainable features, and quite likely be powered by solar on the roof!

Peggy

Cho.Milk Cotton Cheesecake

I always admired a few blogger they could bake very nice cotton cheesecake. I really hope I could make it although I've failed before. Thanks for Happy Flour giving me some tips and technique.

Finally the cotton cheesecake turn out quite nice. I can't say it's perfect as I'm not sure isn't the right texture and the outlook is what it's should be. Overall, I'm quite satisfy with this result and will practice again.

The texture is very light and soft like cotton that I don't feel I'm adding some calorie on my diet. No wonder this cheesecake named as "cotton"! I hope to try out some others flavour. If you've any good cotton cheesecake recipe with coffee, pandan, green tea or other flavours, please share with me. I'm falling in love with this cotton cheesecake :P

I make this cheesecake for a birthday party. I'm not creative and no skills on cake decoration, so I just simply sprinkle some shredded chocolate on the top.

The outlook doesn't looks good but my friend all love the texture. I like the chocolate sponge for the base as its softness goes very well with the cotton cheesecake.

Chocolate Sponge:

3 whole eggs
90g caster sugar

75g plain flour

15g cocoa powder
30g unsalted butter (melted)

Cheese Mixture:
380g chocolate milk

250g cream cheese

50g plain flour (sift)

18g caster sugar

5 egg yolk

5egg white

75g caster sugar

\How I made it:

1. Make the chocolate sponge. Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line the baking parchment at the side and bottom of a 9 inches round cake tin. Shift the plain flour with cocoa powder three times.
2. In another clean bowl, whisk the eggs and gradually add in the caster sugar. Whisk until it double the size. The texture should be fluffy and pale in color.
3. Gradually shift the shifted flour into the egg mixture and use the spatula gently fold it in.
4. Add in the melted butter and fold it in gently.
5. Pour into the baking tin and bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
6. For the cheese mixture. Line the side and base of a 9" round springform baking tin with grease proof paper and place the sponge cake at the bottom. Wrap the base and surrounding of the tin with 2 layers of foil.
7. Double-boil milk, cream cheese and sugar until cream cheese has melted completely.
8. Add in flour, stir and cook until mixture has thicken.
9. Remove from stove and set aside to cool.
10. Preheat oven to 170C. (I preheated at 150C only as my oven had a weird heating system)
11. Whisk in egg yolk into the cream cheese mixture until well combined.
12. Use a cake mixer and whisk the egg whites till frothy. Gradually add in the sugar and whisk till soft peaks form. Fold in 1/4 of the meringue into the cream cheese mixture until combined.
13. Then fold in the rest of the meringue lightly in 3 portions until well combined. Pour batter into the prepared springform pan.
14. Steam-bake cheesecake in a preheated oven for 15mins then reduce temperature to 140C and continue to steam-bake for 1hr and 45mins.15 (I reduce the temperature to 120C as I mentioned my oven had a weird heating system.)
15. Leave the cheesecake to cool in the oven for 1hr with the door ajar. Remove cake from tin and chill in the fridge for over night. (You can also chill the whole cheesecake in the cake tin.) Cut and serve the cheesecake.

Keera (Cucumber) Halwa

I try to watch some of the cookery shows and this recipe was noted down during one of the telecasts of Mallika Badrinath. I missed the introduction part of the recipe. All I could gather was, this is a Mangalore special sweet and she in fact mentioned the traditional name of it, which sounded like a tongue twister to me. I had written in my book as Kheera sweet. I call it halwa now, because of the texture of the sweet. I am not sure if it has to be this way or not. A sweet is a sweet. I would like to know the real name of it from my readers.

On first bite, my husband said, it reminds him of Thiruvathirai kali. I too felt the same. May be its due to the common rice and jaggery mix. Anyways on to the recipe now.

You need

Medium sized cucumber- 1, peeled and grated

Powdered jaggery - 1 1/2 cup

Rice flour - 1 cup

Grated coconut - 1/2 cup

Ghee - 2 tblspoon

Roasted cashews for garnish

The orginal recipe says use raw rice. It has to be soaked for 2 hrs. I used rice flour instead. Grind the rice flour(or soaked rice), jaggery and coconut to a fine paste. You can sprinkle some waterwhile grinding. Stir in the grated cucumber. The batter consistency should be like that of idli batter. Adjust the consistency by adding water. Not much will be required since it will be taken care of the water in the cucumber.

Heat a kadai with a tablespoon of ghee. Pour the batter. Keep stirring and add ghee at intervals to prevent sticking. This should take around 10 minutes. When it comes together, pour onto a greased plate and press it down evenly. When warm, mark into squares and decorate with roasted cashews.

After tasting the sweet, I felt the batter will make good pancakes/ vella dosai.

This is my contribution to Sia's RCI-Udupi & Mangalore, an event started by Lakshmi