Sneaking a Peek

To Get:

Half and Half
1 Lemon
Mt. Dew This item is actually, dark, circled and underlined. I maybe have a problem.
Pita Bread
Smoked Gouda or Cheddar
? Salami for Crackers
? Frozen Pizza ?
Bandaides - LF, Nextcare?
Something for Supper - Pot Pies

Reminder: Get Sandpaper
Rip new Hendrix CD
Photograph new pb/pb&choc. chip cookies - POST

If you could actually see the page in my 'To Do' notepad you'd also see scribbled annotations for French Toast, Roasted Chicken/?Honeyed? Carrots & Roast Carrot Dip. Tomorrow MUST be a holiday.

The Home Cook: Chocolate Swirl Turtle Cheesecake

Let's kick off our shoes, pull up a chair and just remember what it feels like to sit quietly. Pull out your yarn, needle and floss or applique and get comfy cozy because the time has come to recoup from the festive madness. We can pass some coffee or cocoa and maybe share a little nibble of something crunchy and unsweetened. After the holiday sugar rush I'm sure I'm not the only one who could use a carrot sick or twelve. But before we delve into those New Year's resolutions I have one more bad-to-the-bone thing to share. I'll give you a hint it starts with cheese and ends with cake, and if you've been a diligent reader you've known this was coming.

The way I see it there are two cheesecake camps. Camp 'A' is filled with devout souls who yearn for a thick, dense hunk of cheesecake, the kind that holds your fork for you and needs a big steaming cup of coffee or an icy glass of milk to help it down; Camp 'B' is populated with the folks that often shame-facedly whisper things like, "I like box cheesecake" or "it's better when it's fluffy". I am a Camp A proponent...this recipe is for the Camp B people. I'm not sure how it happened, but I think...I think it's because I love my husband. Also because I'm a push over. Tim loves cheesecake, in all it's variations, but his heart truly sings for the soft fluffy varieties. He'll take a box version over a dense, artisan crafted one any day and as much as it goads me, his preferences are his preferences. I'm not changing the stripes on that zebra...or at least not that particular stripe. So when he put in his holiday desert requests I was left with a challenge...make a cheesecake, preferably a turtle cheesecake and make sure it's fluffy.

Okay then.

What I eventually came up with was a base cheesecake recipe, a recipe for the crust / chocolate swirls and a guide for the toppings. Overall the end product was a "success". I will however say this...it seemed WAY TOO FLUFFY. Baby bunnies and cheese cakes should have very little in common. That said, maybe you're wondering, was it a hit? Did the fluffy factor hit the mark? The short answer is...we don't know. While it was certainly well received by others, Tim never ate any...he stuck with his first love, the pumpkin pie. Sometimes a girl just can't win.

Chocolate Swirl Turtle Cheesecake

Crust
1 9-ounce package Chocolate Wafer Cookies
6 Tablespoons (3/4 stick) Unsalted Butter, melted

For Filling:
4 8-ounce packages Cream Cheese, room temperature
1 1/2 cups Sugar
1/4 cup All Purpose Flour
5 large eggs
1 16-ounce container Sour Cream
1/4 cup Milk
1 Tablespoon Vanilla

Chocolate Swirls:*
3 tablespoons whipping cream
4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

Toppings:
1/4 cup purchased caramel sauce
1/4 cup purchased fudge sauce
1/4 cup dark chocolate chips
1/4 cup milk chocolate chips*
1/2 cup whole toasted pecans, lightly chopped.

To Prepare Crust:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Finely grind cookies in processor. Blend in butter. Press crumb mixture onto bottom and 1 inch up sides of 10-inch-diameter spring form pan with 2 3/4-inch-high sides. Wrap outside of spring form pan with foil.

To Prepare Filling:
Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar in large bowl until will blended. Beat in flour. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating just until combined. Beat in sour cream, milk and vanilla.
Bring cream to simmer in heavy small saucepan. Reduce heat to low. Add chocolate and stir until mixture is melted and smooth. Remove from heat.

Pour half of cream cheese mixture into crust. Spoon half of chocolate mixture over by tablespoons, spacing evenly. Using tip of knife, swirl chocolate mixture into filling. Spoon remaining cream cheese mixture over. Spoon remaining chocolate mixture over by tablespoons. Swirl into filling.

Place spring form pan in large roasting pan. Pour enough hot water into roasting pan to come 1 inch up sides of pan. Bake cheesecake until just set in center and top is slightly puffed and golden brown, about 1 hour, 5 minutes to 1 hour, 15 minutes. Remove cheesecake from roasting pan and foil. Refrigerate until cold, at least 6 hours. Cover; refrigerate overnight.*

To Finish / Serve:
Using small knife, cut around pan sides to loosen cake. Release pan sides. Drizzle 2 Tablespoons of fudge sauce over the top of the cake, garnish with toasted pecans, dark chocolate and milk chocolate chips; drizzle caramel sauce over top and serve.

*Cook's Notes:*
Double the swirl ingredients...do not use chocolate chips.

The original filling recipe directions: Bake cheesecake until just set in center and top is slightly puffed and golden brown, about 1 hour. Turn off oven; keep door closed. Let cheesecake stand in oven 1 hour. Remove cheesecake from roasting pan. Refrigerate until cold, at least 6 hours. Cover; refrigerate overnight. I think I'd try it this way next time to set the filling a bit more.

As if this isn't decadent enough, I want to make this caramel sauce in lieu of the jar variety someday.

If you can locate mini-chocolate chips, use them...but not 1/4 cup worth, this would be a less is more thing.

I used a 10" spring form, filled with in 3/8" of the top and had batter leftover...like a dozen or so cheesecake tartlettes worth of batter.

The Home Cook: Lemon Spritz Cookies & Peanut Butter Sweeties

Christmas is just about here. It's standing so close I can almost feel it breathing in my ear, whispering things like...must make pie...must make cheesecake...eat lots of sugar. Christmas is getting down right pushy.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that Tim had to work and I was going to be making Christmas goodies. And make I did, Paula Dean and her butter-lovin' self would have been proud...I used 4 boxes of butter and one bag of sugar. Yes, kind readers...one WHOLE BAG of sugar. That's a lot of sweet stuff. The final count ended reading something like a candy-makers catalog. In the end there was:

- Caramel Corn
- Oyster Cracker Snacks
- Pumpkin Bread (9 mini-loaves)
- Butter Crunch Toffee (Something New - Eh, Will Try a Different Recipe)
- Chocolate Chip Mint Cookies (Something New - Has Potential)
- Ice Box Cookies
- Almond Bark Pretzels
- Lemon Spritz Cookies
- Peanut Butter Sweeties

This just leaves the last two baking projects of the year, the desserts for Christmas Day.

The sweet-salty perfection of pretzels and almond bark.

I think we've all had them, those little wreath cookies. The ones that are made from a cookie press, come in assorted pinks or green, a little dry, a little chewy and have zero flavor? When I first got my cookies press I made those edible wastes of space and time, but then inspiration struck in the form of a Google search and never again have I inflicted that horrid blend of flour, sugar and glue on another human being. These days I have a trick up my sleeve and an ace in the hole, these spritz cookies have class and, of all things, flavor! Small airy bites of crisp lemony goodness, one batch of these goes fast.

Lemon Spritz Cookies

1 cup Butter, softened
1 (3 oz.) package Cream Cheese, softened
1 cup Sugar
1 Egg Yolk
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
3/4 teaspoon Lemon Flavoring
1 1/4 teaspoons grated Lemon Peel
2 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon Salt

Preheat oven 350°F. Cream butter and cream cheese together. Add sugar and mix well until light and fluffy. Add egg yolk, vanilla, lemon flavoring and lemon peel. Mix well. Gradually add flour and salt to creamed mixture. Shape dough in small logs and place in Wilton Cookie Press. Press cookies onto cool ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned.

Makes 4 dozen cookies

When it comes to all time favorites nothing beats the Peanut Butter Sweetie. It's a perfect blend of sweet, salty, crisp, melty, chocolate and peanut butter deliciousness.

Hello new Macro-Lens.

Peanut Butter Sweeties

1 cup Creamy Peanut Butter
1/2 cup Butter, softened
1 teaspoon Vanilla
3 cups Powdered Sugar
1 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (small size)
1/2 cup Milk Chocolate Chips
1 Tablespoon Shortening
approximately 3 cups mini-pretzels

Blend together peanut butter, butter and shortening until smooth. Beat in powdered sugar until combined. Shape mixture into 1" balls; press on to pretzel.* Place on waxed paper lined cookie sheet. Refrigerate until peanut butter is firm, about one hour. Melt chocolate chips and shortening on stove over low heat or in microwave. Dip PB balls into chocolate, returning to baking sheet pretzel side down. Allow to sit until chocolate has set; storing in an air tight container in refrigerator.

*Some years I can't find the mini-pretzels that this recipe calls for, if that happens I crush the pretzels and roll the chocolate dipped peanut butter ball in them...like a poky truffle.

Pixelated F-Stops: Christmas 2007

So despite all evidence to the contrary, I haven't been trapped under an avalanche of Christmas Spirit. It's been a busy month of every day stuff and butt kicking holiday stuff. As in the holiday stuff is kicking my butt. We've goodie made, decorated and been festively social week by week and as Christmas starts peeking around the corner I'm starting to look forward to the end payoff of all this good natured holiday labor.

Through out the last month I've been clicking pictures away left and right, this may in some small part be due to all the new fun camera gear I've acquired; (See microlense, wide angle lens and tele-conversion lens.) none of which has made me a better photographer in the least. This is especially true when it comes to not accidentally deleting two weeks of photos from the SD card. (Grrr, the less said about that the better.)

This year's tree. A study in simplicity and red.

A lot of red.

I have relented...we have an inflatable yard decoration. We are soooo white bread mid-America.

These are our neighbors...they're festive. Very festive.

My mom's first Christmas ornament. My grandma used it as a "topper" for a stuffed pillow tree she gave me during my first Christmas season at college...sentimentality be damned, it got hot-glued on. These days she has a spot of honor on my tree.

Glass icicle ornaments...they're sparkly AND pretty.

One out of a set of nutcracker ornaments Tim brought along when we got married...they actually function though I suspect they would only crack very small nuts. Peanuts maybe?

Rockin' Out Classical Style: Luigi Boccherini

So a few weeks ago Tim and I watched Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. I know, I know the movie is like a billion years old and I'm living so far under a rock it's not even funny. But the thing is that if you haven't seen Master and Commander you might not suspect that there are portions of the movie where people are separated from their limbs. I however, cheated and knew this before going in and maybe, perhaps almost for certain, this is why it took me three years to finally get the balls to watch the damn movie. I maybe suffer from limb separation anxiety. So long story short I over came my dread of free roaming limbs and bloody, weeping wounds and FINALLY sat through the glory that is Russell Crow's accent. (Being from the middle of nowhere, my people can listen to anyone with an accent babble on for days...this includes accents from far flung places like New Jersey, Alabama and Northern most Canada. It also means that we're willing to pretend that a clearly Australian accent is British.)

Anyway the point of all this isn't to tell you that movie is good, because lets face it, everyone except me and .0003% of the rest of the population already knows it was good...Oscar nomination good...and maybe Oscar winning good, but that I don't remember. The point of this is to tell you that the soundtrack has inspired in me a deep love. As far as soundtracks go, there are two categories: 1) Awesome in the context of the film and 2) Awesome on it's own. Type number two is extremely rare. Titanic (Yes, THAT Titanic) is a #1 kind of soundtrack it's very nice, but on it's own it just can't carry its clunky bulk, it needs the visual impact of the movie to make sense. Master and Commander is definitely a #2 kind of collection...mostly because it is comprised of actual pieces of classical music and those that are not pre-existing compositions are based on Luigi Boccherini's La Musica Notturna di Madrid, Op.30 No.6.

This is a beautiful piece of music. I cannot say that enough...it is a BEAUTIFUL piece of music and because of it's beauty I have fallen madly in love with it. Considering my love of classical music this isn't entirely surprising, but there is just something introspective yet lively and lovely about this particular piece that bumped me from mild crush territory to lusting with a disturbing obsession. Which maybe explains why I now have an Italian import CD that has not one drop of English anywhere on it in my CD collection.

The Home Cook: 2007 Christmas Baking

Tim has to work on Saturday. This is a good thing for a number of reasons...I can wrap gifts, do some Christmas related errands and bake some holiday cheer. Lilly and I plan on enjoying that last item immensely. Tim has requested some ice-box cookies and a batch of oyster cracker snacks, while I necessitate Caramel Corn...as to the rest I'm still a bit on the fence. Things I am considering:

* Chocolate Pecan Toffee
* Rugelach
* Chocolate Pepper/Mint Cookies
* Lemon Pound Cake Loaves
* Peanut Butter Sweeties

I'm still looking for one more non nut / chocolate confection, because honestly...there are people out there who are allergic to those items. I feel those people's pain and suffering, and really they MUST be suffering because life without chocolate and nuts? It is a hollow shell of a life. Anyway my bleeding heart tells me to care for the snacking proclivities of all God's creatures therefore I must seek out goodies that will appeal to anyone of any ilk.