3rd try 3 wees

Arrrgh! If this photo slides in sideways after doing a rotate, crop & save on this phone, oh well… third try better be a charm. If not… I give up.

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Small PB&J Cheesecake

Invented a new recipe today to make a no-bake cheesecake in a mini springform pan. It’s plenty big enough for two people, even three or four if you cut smaller slices. Most recipes make way too much. Who needs a dessert to serve 8 or 12 or 16 people?

Here’s how I made it:

Crust:
1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon melted butter
Mix together and press into bottom of 5 inch springform pan. Chill.

PB layer:
1/8 cup crunchy peanut butter
2 oz cream cheese
2 teaspoons confectioner’s sugar
1 cup cool whip lite
Smash cream cheese, sugar, and peanut butter together with fork until nice and creamy, then slowly beat in the whipped topping. Spread on top of crust. Chill while making the next layer.

J layer:
2 T. preserves
1 oz. cream cheese
1/2 cup cool whip lite
I used my sister’s homemade peach preserves (thank you Jai!) and beat it into the cream cheese with an electric mixer which broke the peaches up into tiny bits and made it all creamy. Add whipped topping. Spread on top of peanut butter layer and chill overnight.

I did not chill overnight before cutting a slice (topped with a peach slice pulled from preserves) so I hope it gets a bit firmer overnight. If not, then oh well… maybe use less whipped topping next time? Or maybe it would be good frozen? Actually, if the peanut butter layer was thicker, could just skip the jelly layer and serve it with a dab of perserves on top. That is part of the fun with experimental cooking in less quantity. You can play in the kitchen trying new things. This might be good with pineapple preserves or maybe blackberry. If you don’t like cool whip, maybe try it with whipping cream?

As for calories? Oh, don’t know and don’t care. I’m not dieting. One forth was very satisfying, no urge to binge out on it, so that’s cool, too. I might end up throwing half of it in the freezer. What’s nice about using that mini pan is that an inverted bowl makes a good cake keeper.

Thanks for reading!

Experimental Bread

I baked bread today. Kind of scary because hot, homemade bread fresh from the oven is so good… what if I eat it all?

No fear… it was okay, but not that great.

I invented my own recipe loosely based on the recipe printed on the yeast package. It wanted milk and margarine. I’m out of milk… and who buys margarine? And that recipe made too much. I don’t need a full loaf… that’s why I decided to make bread in the first place. I’m tired of paying almost three bucks a loaf. Unless the kids come over, I’m throwing ye half of it away.

Here’s my attempted version of bread making today:

1 cup flour
1/2 package rapid dry yeast
Little bits of salt & sugar to feed the yeast
Ye 2/3 cup hot water with a splash of olive oil on top

Yep, that’s it… stirred the drys together and added the wet, then kneaded in maybe a third to a half cup more flour until it felt right, and let it rest for about 10 minutes. Then I oiled my hands up with olive oil, shaped it into a log, cut some slits across the top and let it rise ye about double before popping it into the oven to bake until done. Letting it cool before cutting eliminates temptation of eating too much hot bread.

I might have to do some more experimenting. This might be good with herbs or garlic stirred in. Maybe I should look up some recipes and measure stuff. Maybe buy a pan? This came out like two inches tall.

Now you know why I don’t have a recipe blog.

Thanks for reading!