Dinner parties and eating in

Christmas, new year, and all the days around this festive period are, for me and my friends and family, about spending time with each other. We all tend to get together and bring a course each or we just gather and bring any leftovers to come together in one massive picnic/help yourself buffet.

For a dinner party before Christmas, I was asked to bring my famous New York cheesecake to finish a meal. I get bored making things in the same way twice, so I added raspberries into the mix and baked it off in the same way. It worked out a right treat. We loved it. Here's the recipe:

150g digestive biscuits, 75g butter. Crush biscuits into fine crumbs, add melted butter and bake in tin for 15 mins.

Beat 3 big tubs of full fat cream cheese (philly works well here but make sure everything is room temperature otherwise you'll have arms the size as Arni at the end) with 200g caster sugar then mix in 200ml of sour cream (I used crème fraiche because I had no sour cream) and 3 tbspn flour. Gradually add 3 eggs and 1 egg yolk and mix in with 2 tspn of vanilla extract.


Once all combined, stir through zest of 1 lemon and a punnet of raspberries. Pour on top of biscuit mix and then bake for a 45-50 mins on a lower temp (160).

It should be slightly wobbly in the middle when you take it out as it will continue to cook when you bring it out.

Serve with more raspberries and cream – or just out the tin if you can’t wait!

I'm meeting up with lots of friends this Friday so I'm thinking of how to cook for us all. I'm thinking of making a massive pot of rice and then serving two separate dishes with it. At the moment, I'm thinking of a veggie coconut curry and a chilli con carne with guacamole. I'll let you know what I cook and how it goes down.

ZP x