Mint chocolate cheesecake

I came to Provincetown, Massachuzzets a month ago. I started working in a restaurant, after a while, started working in another one too. During the first week I was washing dishes and cleaning the floor. I went hardly through this, because I didn’t expect it. At that moment, the story about Rockefeller came to my mind – that he has one dollar in his pocket, when he started his career.

These are the thoughts that made me feel better and everything came to its place later – they removed me in the Prep Kitchen – where we cut products, measure them into portions, clean mussels, oysters and etc. They also told me I will be working in Pizza Kitchen. There we make pizzas, panini, serve desserts (not made in the restaurant), some appetizers and some other things. In the other restaurant I work on the salte, on the grill sometimes on the fry. I am making pizzas and salads from time to time. I don’t know how to put into words all this, I just can say I am having a great time! The days I like most are when the restaurants are busy. There are so many tickets, that you don’t know exactly what you are doing. I like the chaos in the kitchen and that I am allowed to get things under control. This is Chef’s obligation, but as a part of the team, I feel that I also contribute to it.

I am working with products that I have never seen in Bulgaria. The thing I like most is that I have learnt so many things about these unfamiliar products, how they have to be cooked, their smell, what they have to be eaten with and all that thanks to books, TV shows, Jamie Oliver and so on. Every day I am learning new things, I am writing down every recipe I get, technique or just something that made me impression. I recognize people who know food and I am always trying to be around them, whether sometimes I become very annoying. Some colleagues think that I want to make good impression to everybody, that I am so importunate, but they just don’t realize the reason why I got here. It is to gain some experience, to learn as much as I can, and I even want to get acquainted with the dark side of culinary, how Chef Joe calls it.

Talking about dark side, I couldn’t not mention that I gathered a great speed when cutting onions, carrots, salads, spices. That went well, instead of the wounds I got during the last weeks. People tell me I am the most unfortunate girl they have ever seen. My hands are in scars from burning, my legs are bruised, because I am falling over all the time, I have only two uncut fingers on my right hand. It will be a heroic act if I survive till the end of the summer.

I am always thinking about which is harder – preparing recipes at home and writing in my blog or working in a restaurant. Except not knowing which is more difficult, I even do not know which is more pleasant, because when working team is nice, time is ticking away and in the end of the day you congratulate each other for the good job. Anyways, I think that managing a blog is more difficult, because it costs precision, photographic skills, imagination. Recipes in the restaurant are all the same every day and we are not allowed to change anything, which is easier to ordinary people, because not all of them are creatively disposed. However, I have imagination enough and to spare, so blog wins.

Mint chocolate cheesecake

Author's recipe

Ingredients:

for a 18sm pan

220 g Oreo cookies with mint

60 g butter

340 g cream cheese

340 g sour cream

100 g marshmallow fluff

powdered sugar on taste

mini chocolate chips

green food colour

mint essence

some mint leaves

cocktail cherries

For the base:

Wrap the bottom and the walls of a pan with foil. Place cookies and butter in a blender and pulse until they come into crumbs. Place them on the bottom of the pan, press well so that you get a thick and even crust. Place the pan for a couple of minutes in the freezer.

For the filling:

Mix cream cheese with powdered sugar, green food color and essence for a minute. Add marshmallow fluff, mix again. Add sour cream and chocolate chips. Stir well.

Finally:

Place the filling onto the chilled base. Place it evenly using a spatula and put the dessert in the fridge for one night. When serving, remove the cake from the pan, remove wrap and place the cheesecake in a dessert plate. Decorate it with a couple of Oreo cookies, cocktail cherries and mint leaves.

Happy 4th of July!