Get Well Soon Baby Cheesecakes

My poor mom is currently recovering from an unfortunate accident involving a tree and a long way down and is residing in what we'll just call Fracture City.  My mom is one of my favorite people and I hate that there's nothing I can really do to make it better (other than not taking the boys over to play), but thankfully, because it's my mom we're talking about, there's cheesecake.  Cheesecake, at least for the two of us, can go a long way to fix a lot of things, especially if that cheesecake is chocolate.

These baby cheesecakes are made in a muffin pan so there's no clean-up and they're pre-portioned.  Sometimes I add a crust, but most of the time I'm all about maximizing the cheese part of the cake and skipping the calories I could do without.  This is one of those times when I went crust-less, but if you want that extra layer here's what I would do: make the baby cakes without a crust, then when you unwrap them, roll the sides and bottom in a bowl of graham cracker or chocolate cookie crumbs.  Easy peasy.

The best cheesecakes I've ever made were baked in a water bath and even though it's a big fat pain, it's worth the effort.  In this case, you're going to need to make a miniature bain-marie by filling a cookie sheet with water and placing the muffin pan in that.  It's easiest if you start with the empty cookie sheet in the oven, then add the water from a pitcher.  Good luck getting it back out--that's going to take a calm breath, steady hands, and clearing all Hot Wheels from the vicinity.

Want to skip writing the recipe down and just print it?  All you need to do is click on recipe below and you're good to go from there.  All I ask is that you be a subscriber to get recipes, so make sure you're signed-up before you print.

Do you have something that cheers you up or smooths over a rough spot, food or otherwise?

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Technique of the Week: Easy (little) Dog Sweater

I'm going to come clean right at the beginning, I'm not entirely sure this is a great idea.  I'm on the fence between thinking, "this is a stupid idea" and "this is a pretty clever idea."  BUT, some of my most popular posts are posts that I wasn't really sure about, so you just never know.

I have this sweater that I got a looooong time ago and it's been one of my favorites.  It's been to college and on dates with my husband before he was my husband and it's covered my boys when they were still buns in my oven.  You can imagine, then, that the sweater has seen better days.  I've been trying to figure out how to upcycle my sweater because I didn't want to just get rid of it, so I decided to cut the sleeves off and make dog sweaters.  Yeah, you read that right, I made sweater sleeve dog sweaters.

Before we get into the how, let's cover the who and the what.  This only works for small dogs, looooong small dogs if you can find one.  You'll have to gauge the size of the dog and the size of the sleeve, but do assume that the sleeve will stretch some.  The sweater I used is ribbed and has the perfect amount of give for this project.

You need to take three measurements on your dog, from the base of the neck down the back to the back legs, the chest width (distance between the front legs), and distance from the underside of the base of the neck to the front of the front legs.

1.  Cut the sleeve off the sweater.  Use your dog's neck-to-back-legs measurement and mark the sleeve to that length, starting at the cuff and measuring up toward the shoulder, then cutting at the mark.

2.  Flatten the sleeve with the seam facing up and in the center of the sleeve.  Cut two slits, preferably between knit ribs, about 2 inches long.  Start the slits the same distance from the edge as the neck-to-front-legs measurement.  Space the slits one inch less than the chest measurement apart.

3.  Most sweaters are probably going to start unraveling at some point, so you have a couple options for finishing the neck and the leg holes.  First, you could use some fray check and no-sew it.  Second, you could zigzag or overcast the edge to keep fraying in check.  Lastly, you could finish with an actual edge binding and make it all fancy and professional.

It's now time for your dog to don the sweater and strut her stuff, or go hide under your bed in shame.

So that's my possibly great, possibly ridiculous dog sweater idea.  If nothing else, I hope you enjoyed the gratuitous pics of our wire-haired dachshund Miss Moneypenny.

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Ca Phe Sua Da (Vietnamese coffee) Pops

As I was finishing up my last year of college, I took a job in a little cafe that was short-lived but had a big impact on my cooking experience.  I lived in this cute ground-floor apartment with a private courtyard in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle, right across I-5 from the UW and I noticed one morning on the way to the bus stop that the normally empty cafe space at the front of the building had a hum of activity.  I was a little bored with school and after an inquiry ended-up with a job as pastry chef/barista/cashier for a soft-spoken man named Joseph who was opening a New York/Jewish deli-type place.

The funny thing about this is that Joseph was not from New York, nor was he Jewish--Joseph had been living in the U.S. for about eight years after smuggling himself out of Vietnam on a fishing boat.  I'm still not sure how he learned how to make knishes and matzo ball soup, but we had a loyal New Yorker customer base that swore he was making the real thing.  Some things I learned:

• Mashed potatoes and caramelized onions in pastry is delicious, especially right out of the oven.
• There are people out there that think celery soda is a great idea.
• Dough sheeters are dangerous.
• Waxed sandwich papers are extremely flammable.
• Fish sauce is vile and yet totally necessary to good peanut sauce.
• An iced mocha does not include steamed milk.

 

Joseph spent a lot of time teaching me to make Southeast Asian dishes and sauces and having me sample the fruits and foods that he grew up with.  Sadly, the cafe didn't make it and was only open for about six months, but it was a fun (and educational) six months.  I've found myself thinking about that job this summer because of something else I got from that experience: ca phe sua da (Vietnamese iced "brown" coffee).  Joseph started every morning with a glass with ice and strong coffee topped with a dollop of sweetened condensed milk and got me to try it on more than one occasion.  

If you've ever had Vietnamese coffee, you know how good it is and how perfectly suited for drinking on a hot day.  My problem is that I drink the coffee too quickly and am left with a glass of ice that slowly melts into this dirty-looking, icky-tasting water.  Sooooo, I thought freezing the coffee would be a super idea and it's fantastic.  I'm not even going to do a recipe, I'm just going to tell you what to do:

1. Make some strong coffee.  Or a couple shots of espresso.
2. Fill a tall glass with ice.
3. Pour the coffee over the ice and then add a large spoonful of sweetened condensed milk and stir.
4. Freeze the coffee in a popsicle maker and that's it.

I don't know how it goes where you live, but we still have a few good weeks of summer left, so I'll be enjoying more of these as summer winds down and I hope you get a chance to as well.  

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Technique of the Week: Cherry-Vanilla Soda Syrup

I'm back with another soda syrup and this one's for the Mister--he loves anything involving cherries.  My in-laws live in the fruit-growing capital of Washington, so each year we acquire pounds upon pounds of cherries that need to be consumed.  Poor us, right?  After a while, though, it's easy to get cherry-ed out, so I start looking for alternate ways to use them and making a soda syrup was met with excitement.  In fact, the Mister was so thrilled about the prospect of cherry sodas, he pitted all the cherries for me to speed me on my way.

 Here's the recipe below.  Click on the image to get an easier-to-print page instead of writing it down.  The technique is quite simple and one of the best parts of this particular recipe is that once you strain the syrup you get a bowl of sticky, squishy cooked cherries that are perfect for adding to the soda or putting on ice cream or yogurt.  Yum.

I have noticed during the last week or so that cherries are always on sale at the grocer and I don't know if that's just here because we have a glut of those juicy red gems, or if that's everywhere, but keep an eye out for cherry sales now that summer is coming to a close and make this syrup for cheap.

Do you like fruit-flavored sodas?  What about fruit flavors added to colas?

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Homemade Coffee Ice Cream

Last summer my parents threw a birthday party for a couple of family members and it was a big hit, so they decided to do it again this year.  My parents are, like me (actually, it's probably the other way around), very much the kind of people who enjoy spending extra time to make special dishes from-scratch, so of course we're going to team up and use a special occasion as an excuse to do just that.  Last year we had slow-roasted pulled pork and mini cheesecakes and this year we decided to focus all the extra efforts on homemade ice cream.  Yum.  My mom made fresh strawberry gelato, mint chocolate chip and cheesecake ice creams, and I made coffee and dark chocolate truffle ice creams.  They were all really good, so count on seeing another ice cream recipe or two in the near future.

Before I get to the recipe, here are a couple things about homemade ice cream:

1. You have to use whole milk and cream to get a good product, you just have to.  Resist the temptation to sub low-fat milk--you'll end up chiseling milk popsicles out of a container and that's not fun or delicious.
2. While you could use a old-fashioned hand-crank ice cream maker, you're much better off with an electric ice cream maker.  I have a Cuisinart machine and love it and if you need further encouragement, see what my blog friend Javelin Warrior has to say about his ice cream machine here.
3. There are basically two kinds of ice cream, American and French.  American is just milk, cream, and sugar heated, cooled, and churned.  French is a cooked custard (eggs, milk, and cream) that is cooled and churned.  Try regular Vanilla ice cream and French Vanilla ice cream and you can see the difference--French Vanilla is richer and more complex, while regular Vanilla showcases the flavors of the cream and the vanilla.

If you hate coffee, you won't like this ice cream.  But if you're even remotely coffee-friendly, you'll love it!  I am not a huge coffee drinker and I thought it was pretty good.  In fact, E first complained that I was making "yucky grown-up" ice cream by adding the coffee, but changed his tune once he tried it and said that it "tastes just like those milkshake drinks from Starbucks."  My five-year-old loves a good frappuccino if he can sneak one.

If you're a regular here, you know what to do to get the recipe, but if you're new here (welcome!), all you need to do is click on the recipe above to download.  Recipes are for hobby room diaries followers only, please, so subscribe before you download if you would.

What do you think, is homemade ice cream worth all the calories?  Or would you rather eat the lower-fat kind?

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Ten on Ten: August

We had the opportunity to spend part of last week at a house on the ocean near Tillamook, Oregon with some really fantastic friends.  Spending the day playing at the beach--flying kites, building castles, and wading--is my kind of vacation.  There was no TV at the beach house and I was so happy to notice that I really didn't miss it.  Of course, there was wi-fi, so we weren't totally unplugged, but I definitely found myself checking my phone a lot less than usual and that was really nice.  Instead, we read; the kids, too.  And we talked. A lot.  

Here's the best part: we left thinking "I'm so glad we got to know our friends better", not thinking "I'm so glad to be leaving, that was one day too many".  Also, we left and went straight to the Tillamook Creamery.  If you're not from around here, the Tillamook Creamery makes some of the best dairy products, hands-down, and at the creamery they have a cheese factory tour (cheese samples! cheese curds!) and sell ice cream (every delicious flavor in one place!).  It's absolutely worth a stop.

The ten on ten photo challenge is hosted by Rebecca at a bit of sunshine and its goal is to step back from your (busy) day and see some of the simpler moments that help you remember what's important.

What are some of your favorite moments of the summer so far?

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