Cheesecake (Mini)

I give in to my food cravings way too easily sometimes. I wanted cheesecake. First I tried making little mini ones, in my head that meant I'd be able to eat them sooner, even though all cheesecake needs to season at least overnight. Yeah. Then just yesterday I made a normal one. I forgot to take pictures as I was making the big one, so I just have a final product shot of that one. I've got step by step of the mini ones though. What isn't included is my mad dash to the store because I was out of muffin tins. The one thing I always have a ton of.

This recipe is a product of my brain and reading tons of different cheesecake recipes.

First the crust. I use my blender to make the crumbs. I used half graham crackers, half vanilla wafers. This recipe makes way more than is needed for the mini cheesecakes, I actually ended up using the rest of it for the big cheesecake. Ran a little short on the crust for the big one, so that crust is thin. This recipe can be used for the big one's crust or for the minis. I'm going to double the cheesecake mix for the minis, that will use up all the crust.



Crust:
2 cups cookie crumbs, I did 1 of graham crackers, 1 of vanilla wafers.
1/4 cup of normal white sugar
6 Tablespoons to 1 stick of butter, melted.
1 tsp. cinnamon. This isn't necessary, but I like it. :)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine all the ingredients together. I mix all the dry first then add the butter, the 6 tablespoons first, adding more if needed. It really depends, you need the crumbs to stick together a little, be able to form into the pan basically. I use a fork to mix the butter in.


For mini cakes:
Line a normal muffin tin with the muffin cups, I used the foil ones with a paper liner, they worked perfect for this. If you are one of the lucky ones, with a mini cheesecake pan, feel free to use that, I don't have one. I'm guessing you would grease it like a normal springform pan. Spoon a soup spoonful into each muffin tin. Oh. This will make 24 minis. So two of the 12 muffin tins. (You know, I bet you could use the giant muffin tins too, just would have to increase the cook time.) Set aside till you're done the batter. (No baking of the crust needed.)


For the batter for the minis:
2 8oz packs of cream cheese, (two boxes) softened. Just pull them out of the fridge before you even start the crust and it should be good by the time you get to it. Unless your kitchen is exceptionally chilly.
1/2 cup of normal white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

Cream the sugar and cheese together, then mix in the eggs and vanilla. Mix it just until it is all combined, you don't want to sit there and stir it for an extra 5 minutes just because you can. Cheesecake batter is picky. I just used a spoon for this batter. Didn't pull out the mixer until the big cheesecake. Now you'll want to spoon the batter into the muffin tins evenly, using again, a soup spoon. I'd suggest starting with just a little in each, then going back over to make sure they are all as even as possible. As you can see, I ran out of batter. :)

Bake them in the oven for 12-14 minutes, it took the full 14 in my oven. You want the centers to be a little wiggly still, but just a tiny bit.


This is how they look right out of the oven. You want to let them cool in the pan a minute or two, then pull them out and put them on a wire rack. Then into the fridge they should go, overnight is best. But I think if you made these first thing the morning they'd be good for dessert.



This is how they look on my plate. I didn't wait, I ate some right away, when they were still warm. I was not impressed. Cheesecake really does need to sit. The next day, my friend was over and we tried them. These are so delicious. They really are worth the wait. You can top them with practically anything. The favorite for me is strawberries. Sadly I cannot get decent fresh ones down here. You can use frozen fruit, pie fillings, caramel sauce, chocolate sauce, the limit really is your imagination. I'm quite happy eating it plain until I get some good strawberries. When I have fresh strawberries I slice them up and put them in a bowl with about 2 teaspoons of sugar and let them sit. They get super juicy and delicious.


For the big cheesecake. You need a lot more stuff. Mine failed rather wonderfully. So I'll not be posting the recipe I used. I'll be tweaking it and trying again sometime soon. I can't stand when a recipe doesn't work, I have to fix it and try again. :)
How did it fail? First I messed up the crust by only using what I had leftover from the mini ones, rather than making more. So the crust is very thin. Second, the cooking instructions with this recipe are faulty. The cheesecake didn't cook enough. I was trusting, the middle was still wobbly,but it was supposed to be. I made it yesterday, today, the middle isn't right. It's super creamy, like the texture of coolwhip. The edge is nice and cakey though. The thirdly, it calls for almond extract. I figured I'd give it a try. I don't really like it, but with everything else that went wrong with this cheesecake, I'm not ruling it out forever, I'm just shelving the idea of almond extract instead of vanilla in a cheesecake for a while.
I am giving the cheesecake another day to season. Hopefully this recipe just takes longer to season then most. Who knows. We'll find out. Right now I am not expecting it to change much, but it may.

Enjoy the minis! You can cut the recipe in half to make just 12 of them. Depends on what you're making them for and how many people will want them. Two a person seems to be the magic number with these ones.

Pumpernickel Bread

YUMMY

This is the recipe I followed, with my own tweaks of course. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Bread-Machine-Pumpernickel-Bread/Detail.aspx And yes, I have not figured out how to properly insert links into one of these things.

You'll Need:

A bread machine. I know this can be tweaked for 'old fashioned' bread making, but I don't bake that way.
A baking pan to bake the bread on, I used out pizza stone. You can bake this in your bread machine, I just prefer making the round loaf and baking it like that.

• 1 1/8 cups warm water
• 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup molasses
• 3 tablespoons cocoa
• 1 tablespoon caraway seed (optional and I do not use)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 cups bread flour
• 1 cup rye flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten (optional and I do not use)
• 2 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

Put all the ingredients into your bread machine per your machines directions. The normal seems to be, liquid first, then dry, then make a well in the dry for the yeast so it doesn't touch the water.

The way I set my machine is first the loaf size, this recipe is a 1.5 pounder. Then I select the dough setting. Press start. I also set my kitchen timer now for about 30 minutes. I want the machine to do the hard work of mixing everything together, and give the rise a head start with the heat. Once the machine has stopped to let the dough do its first rise, I unplug mine.

I leave the dough in there until its risen, about an hour. Then I remove the dough from the little pan thing and shape it into the round loaf. I usually sprinkle some corn meal on some parchment paper to do this. You aren't kneading it, just shaping it into a circle. Cover with a towel (keep it light) and let it rise for another good hour.

Once it looks like a nice loaf of pumpernickel, into the preheated 350 degree oven it goes for 45 minutes. You should be able to knock on the crust when it's done. Let it cool for a bit then enjoy. :D

Posting Often Totally Worked Out

Yeppers. I've been posting very often haven't I?

*shame*

So this is my reasserantion of my desire to maintain a blog. Why? I have no idea. Maybe because my husband is deploying soon, maybe it is because getting a job is looking more and more less likely, or maybe it is because I just feel like it.

I've got a pumpernickel bread recipe in the works. I will be attempting it tomorrow so I'l lbe sure to take pictures.

As for writing, I finished the first draft of Ivory and am now working the the first edit. I know there will at least be a second edit. And most likely a third simply because this is my first novel completed. There are a lot of things I have learned already about how to write a first draft just from the first 130 pages of editing I've done. Making sure all the basic facts about the characters are correct is a good start. And not writing scenes out of order. Unless it's all flash back stuff and it makes sense.

I want to start heavy prepping on my next project, but I can't focus on it right now. Andy's leaving soon and I am able to focus on editing Ivory so I'm happy with that.

Ivory finished at 398 pages, double spaced 12 point Times New Roman. I don't remember the word count, but after I cut the crap at the end it was under 100k. But not by much.

All I have for now. Laters

Debbie's Mini Pies

This one is from Debbie, as you can tell by the name. It uses premade stuff from the refrigerated section again, this are in no way healthy, except that they are mini pies inside of full ones.

You'll Need:

1 roll big flaky biscuits, the one with 5 in it I think
A normal sized muffin tin
Cinnamon and sugar
Fruit pie filling of your choice, blueberry, peach, strawberry, w/e you want
Little bit of flour and butter to make the crumble top
Cool whip (or canned whip cream, I can't do dairy very well so non dairy cool whip for me)


How To:

Separate each of the biscuits into two, flatten them each out into about 4 inch circles. Dip one side in the cinnamon sugar, then stuff them cinnamon sugar side down into the muffin tin. Fill with desired filling. Smush together the flour and butter, and some cinnamon sugar until its crumbly. Sprinkle on top of each of the mini muffins. Bake in the oven at around 375 degrees for about 15 minutes. Pull them out, drop a dollop of cool whip on the one you're going to eat, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and enjoy! Oh, to get them out of the pan I let them cool a minute then used a fork, I plan to try them using paper muffin cups but haven't yet.

Its very yummy and sweet. I only eat one at a time, too sweet for me to have more than one, too much sugar makes me go to sleep. :D

Enjoy!
Meg

Waffles

This one is all mine. Now, I am not good at baking, so with this recipe I start with a pre-made pancake mix and add to it. In the future I hope to make yummy waffles that don't start out as such, but so far all attempts have yielded floury tasting dry waffles. This recipe only makes about 3 waffles with our Belgian waffle maker. I'm going to try altering this weekend to get a solid four waffles. It really depends on your waffle iron for how many waffles you get. With ours this one makes two good ones and the third is fickle. Sometimes it makes a good third one, other times the remaining batter makes about half a waffle. I think it changes depending on how long I let it sit.

You'll Need:

A box of Aunt Jemima's pancake mix, original, the just add water one.
You'll use 2 cups of the above mix
1 1/2 cups water
1/3 cups oil (I use veggie oil, olive oil would be too heavy I think)
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 and 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon, I think
Pam
You can add various things to the batter, blueberries, strawberry chunks, whatever you want really. With this amount of batter, no more than a cup I would say. But thats me. :D

A waffle iron, a mixing bowl, a spoon, a ladle, cooling racks, a fork.
Various toppings. I top mine with cool whip and normally fresh strawberries, my husband likes butter and Mrs. Butterworth syrup. If i want syrup, I go for the good stuff thats like 5 bucks a bottle. Thankfully I don't go for it much. This morning my husband used his syrup and peanut butter, that was on pancakes made with this mix straight up. So yeah, use whatever you want for toppings.

How To:

Follow the instructions on the back on the box, the waffle instructions are on the bottom left corner above the chart for different amounts of pancakes. Add in the brown sugar and cinnamon once you've got the water and oil mixed together. Now, this is important. Do not set your waffle iron to heat before you make this. Right now, walk away from the batter. Get the waffle iron out of the cupboard and set up. Spray it lightly with Pam and plug it in to start heating up. Stay away from the batter.
After about 5 minutes or more, the waffle iron should be heated, and your batter should be full of air pockets. This is what you want. Ladle a good amount of the batter onto the iron, you want the batter to be almost reaching the edge on its own while its still seeping around the iron. Close the lid and back away. I want to say walk away, which you can, just don't forgot about it. I'm not sure how long it will take to cook, it depends on the waffle iron. Tried and true method, don't open the lid until after it starts steaming and stops. So. You close the lid. No steam. It starts to steam. It stops steaming. It is safe to check the waffle. I use a fork to pop the waffle out of the iron and onto a cooling rack. No I don't let it cool, its just that if you put it right onto a plate, the bottom gets soggy from the steam. So let it sit on the rack for a minute before serving.

Thats it really. You can also make like a double batch and freeze some if you want. I haven't tried that because I'd want to eat them all.

I usually make these on Sunday, around noon when my husband and I finally wake up. hehe. I'll take a photo and post it. I didn't make them this past Sunday, we had friends over Saturday night and my husband was only able to get me out of bed by luring me out with cinnamon buns. :D

Enjoy!
Meg

Twice Baked Potatoes

This one is a family favorite from my husbands side. It has become a favorite on my side of the family too!

Note: This one can easily be halved, but since it takes a while to make and they freeze well, I just make the full recipe.

You'll need:

A good two hours! (Takes an hour roughly to bake the potatoes the first time, so not two hours chained to the kitchen.)

10 pounds russet potatoes
3 pounds bacon(yes, three pounds, you can cut it down if you want, I suggest trying it first then altering as you wish)
4 cups of diced onions
1 four cup package of finely shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1-8 ounce pack of cream cheese (the little box)
16 ounces of sour cream
Salt
Pepper

One large cookie sheet or two smaller ones, a large mixing bowl, a fork, a soup spoon, wiring cooling racks, electric mixer, a fry pan, cutting board and knife, and I think that is it. Oh, a potato scrubber if you're big on getting the potatoes clean within an inch of its potato life, otherwise just use your hands to scrub them.

How to:
Turn the oven on to 425 degrees. Scrub all the potatoes, takes a bit and tends to tire you out, but just think, its a mini workout! Poke the potatoes with the fork a few times so they don't explode in the oven. Now I normally put the potatoes right on the oven rack but you can use a cookie sheet if you want. Bake the potatoes for an hour.
While they are baking, dice up the onions and put them aside. Heat up the fry pain to cook the bacon. Best idea we've ever come up with, slice up the bacon into chunks before frying it. Saves a lot of effort afterwards. Fry up the bacon, a pound at a time works best. Line a plate with paper towels to drain the bacon as you are down frying it. Drain the fat as needed to not create a boiling pile of fat. With the last batch reserve some of the grease to cook the onions. To make it healthier you can drain all the fat and use olive oil or some other healthier alternative. Cook the onions until they are tender. You cook try to do this while the potatoes are cooling but I find it easier to do right after I get the potatoes in the oven, then once I'm done with the onions I can just walk away from the kitchen till the potatoes are done.
Check the potatoes after the hour, I usually poke a butter knife into the biggest one, if it goes in smoothly, they are done. Transfer them from the oven to the cooling racks for about 20 minutes or so. Take the cream cheese out of the fridge at the same time so it will soften up a bit before its time to mix.
After the potatoes cool a bit, cut them in half lengthwise and scoop out the meat part, leaving the skin intact making a sort of potato shell I guess. Scoop the potato meat into the mixing bowl. Arrange the potato shells onto the cookie sheets, its best to try to cook them all at once. Add the cream cheese, sour cream and mix well. Try to get it creamy. If you need to, add some more sour cream, some butter or milk to make it creamy. Then mix in the onions, usually okay on low with the mixer, otherwise use a spoon. Then its time for the bacon and cheese. Easiest to do them one at a time. Once you've got the cheese mixed in its time for a taste test. Usually needs pepper and some salt, I go light on the salt because there is plenty from the bacon, my husband knows he'll have to add more when he eats one, but he doesn't mind.
Time to preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Once you've got it salt and peppered start scooping the mixture into the potato shells. Be generous! Stuff those potato skins! Don't mound them, just stuff them. You will likely have some mixture left over, that is normal, time to treat yourself, stick it in a small bowl, pop it in the microwave and enjoy!. The potatoes once stuffed get put in the oven for about 30 minutes, might take longer, you want the tops to start turning light brown. Then eat!
What to do with the rest of them? Unless you're feeding a heck of a lot of people, you'll have a bunch of potatoes left over. I freeze about half of whats left, glad ware comes in here. The other half I stick in zip bags and put in the fridge. Don't do that until they are cool though. Hot potatoes into the freezer...not so good. You can also freeze or refrigerate any leftover mixture that didn't make it into a potato. Reheating the potatoes, microwave is the quickest but it tends to make the potato skins tougher. I reheat them in the oven, at about 300 degrees for 15-20 minutes. You don't want to brown the tops anymore, just warm them all the way through.
Recipe is from my mom-in-law Doss, side notes are from me though.



Ignoring my slightly dirty stove, this is sort what one looks like. This one is out of the fridge since I made these last week. They are wicked yummy.

Enjoy!
Meg

Best Sugar Cookies Ever

Another family favorite. Sour Cream Christmas Sugar Cookies.
Despite the name, they can be made at times other than Christmas. These sugar cookies are so thick and fluffy, you'll never want a flat crunchy one again. These cookies freeze well and this recipe is very easy to double, or even triple. :D

What you'll need:

1 cup butter (or margarine, or such)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon baking soda and baking powder. You need one of each.
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4 cups all-purpose flour or the like
colored sugar, sprinkles and red hots or any other similar things for decorating. (Optional but fun!)

Electric mixer (can do it by hand, just takes longer), a sifter or a fine mesh strainer, or a whisk in a pinch, a refrigerator(to chill the dough), a rolling pin, cookie cutters or a knife to cut shapes out, a couple cookie sheets for baking, wire racks for cooling, and zip bags or glad ware for storage. Plastic wrap, two mixing bowls and a wooden spoon.

How To:
Cream the butter and sugar. Then blend in the sour cream, eggs and the vanilla (sometimes I add an extra splash of vanilla). If you're lucky and have a stand mixer you can start sifting while its still mixing. Me, I haven't earned my KitchenAid yet so I'm the stand for the hand mixer. Once you're done blending, sift together the flour, and baking soda and powder (1 tsp of each!). Slowly add the dry mix into the bowl with the wet ingredients. Use the mixer as long as possible, but it will get too stiff for it and you will have to mix in the remaining dry mix my hand with a spoon or your fingers. Wrap up the dough in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for two hours.
Roll out the dough until it is about 1/3 of an inch thick. Cut out into desired shapes, decorate as you please with the sprinkles, colored sugar and red hots (we usually use them for the eyes and buttons on gingerbread shaped cookies).
Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for about 9 minutes. Watch them after 5! Leave on the cookie sheet for about a minute then transfer to the wire racks to cool. Make sure to let the cookie sheets cool in between batches otherwise the cookies could cook unevenly.

Enjoy!
Meg

* Will add photos after I make them this weekend.

Sour Cream Strawberry Salad

This one is a family favorite. We have it every year at Christmas, now that I've got my own house though, I plan on having it a lot more often! It is delicious and simple, and it isn't even all that bad for you. Especially compared to a fudge sundae.

What you'll need:
1 pkg. strawberry jell-o (the normal size one)
1 bag frozen strawberries
1 (6 oz.) can of crushed pineapple
1-1 1/2 cups sour cream
1 cup boiling water

A mold, we usually use a large round one with the hole in the middle.
A medium bowl, whisk and a rubber spatula.

How to:

Pour the powdered jell-o into the bowl, add the boiling water and mix until dissolved. Add in the strawberries and the pineapple. Pour half the mixture into the mold, reserve the other half at room temperature. Chill the mold until the jell-o is set, remove it from the fridge, spread the sour cream over the surface of it then pour the remaining jell-o on top of that. Return to the fridge and chill until set. Flip it out onto a pretty serving dish to serve, leave it in the fridge until ready to eat though. Its best nice and chilly.

Will add photo after I make it this weekend. :D

Meg

**NOTE: I made it, came out yummy, I had to use my phone to take the picture since I couldn't find my camera...and now I can't find my cable that connects my phone to my computer...so once I figure out how to get the picture off my phone onto my computer, I'll post it.