About six months
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Wednesday, March 6, 2024
Make you're own vanilla extract
About six months
Monday, March 4, 2024
Pecan Pie Cheesecake
THE Pecan Pie Cheesecake.
I've also made this for a friend who is lactose intolerant using vegan cream cheese, dairy free sour cream, and vegan butter. NOTE: You must add more sugar to the cheesecake because something about missing lactose resulted in a less sweet cheesecake. I added an extra 1/3 cup sugar and that solved the issue.
INGREDIENTS
Crust:
1 3/4 cup Ginger snaps
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup butter (melted)
Pie Filling:
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup dark corn syrup
1/3 cup butter
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cup pecans (chopped but not fine)
1 tablespoon bourbon (or vanilla extract)
Cheesecake:
3 eight ounce pkgs cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup sour cream
Instructions: Preheat oven to 350° Place oven racks so one is at the very bottom of the oven, and the next one as close to middle as you can get it. This will make sense later.
Begin with the crust: Add cookies to a food processor or blender and pulverize them into the consistency of sand. Add crumbs to a bowl and mix in sugar. Then add the melted butter. Mix well and transfer to a lined springform pan (NOTE: you can add parchment paper to only the bottom of your pan and grease the sides, or you can line the whole pan. It’s purely a matter of preference. Press the crumb mix into the bottom and sides of the pan (about halfway to the top).
Place crust in the oven on a cookie sheet and bake for 5 to 7 minutes at 350°. Remove from oven and set aside.
Next make the pecan pie: Add the sugar, syrup, butter, pecans and bourbon into the pan. Mix in the beaten eggs. Make sure all ingredients are thoroughly mixed BEFORE you add heat. Otherwise you’ll end up with scrambled eggs. Once everything is mixed add heat. Bring the mixture to a boil. Turn down heat to a simmer and cook for 3-4 minutes. Trust me on this.
Remove from heat and pour the mixture into the crust and set aside.
Finally, you make the cheesecake: First, reduce the oven temp to 325°
Using your kitchen aid or electric mixer, beat the cream cheese until it is a creamy texture. Slowly add sugar and flour. When that is completely mixed, add the eggs one at a time, beating just enough to mix the egg. Next, stir or fold in (by hand) the sour cream and bourbon until completely mixed. Pour the cheesecake mixture over the pecan pie filling.
Bake in the oven for one hour. After one hour, turn off the oven (do not open the oven door). Just turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake there for another hour.
After hour two, remove the cheesecake from the oven and run a knife around the edges (if you didn’t line the edges of the pan. Cook the cheesecake for at least 30 minutes but overnight is better because the flavors have time to set and develop.
NOTES:
1. The bourbon. The alcohol will cook out. I routinely use bourbon in recipes calling for Vanilla extract if I’m out. I don’t find bourbon changes the taste of the recipe.
2. Bake your cheesecake on a cookie sheet. I do this for two reasons: spills and a barrier between the heat and the bottom of the cake pan.
3. Be aware of your altitude. I notice things take longer to boil/cook at a higher altitude.
4. Instead of a water bath I place a 3 quart casserole dish on the bottom rack of the oven and I fill it with hot water. It stays in the oven until you remove the cheesecake. I don’t do the full water bath method because it never works for me. I’ve had the water leak into the custard/cheesecake and that my friends will ruin a day. And maybe cause tears if it’s already 3am and you’re still baking for the big holiday dinner tomorrow. Hypothetically.
The purpose of a water bath is to avoid cracks in the cheesecake and to allow for a more even bake. My cheesecakes do not crack. They’re creamy and delicious. And they’ve never baked unevenly.
5. I use a gas oven on convection bake. I have had electric ovens and non-convection ovens and the only thing to you need to know is whether your oven cooks hotter/faster than what a recipe normally calls for, and adjusting for that. Your cheesecake may still be jiggly when you remove it from the oven. That doesn’t mean it’s not done. You cannot check it with a toothpick, so just check the jiggle. If it jiggles everywhere, cook it a little longer. Only the middle should still have some jiggle.
You can also check with a thermometer in the dead center of your cheesecake. If the temp is between 150° and 160° it should be done. You’ll have a small hole in the top, but that’s not end of the world once you cut it. Or put a nut there. Whatever works.
6. Finally, this cheesecake does not need a garnish in my opinion, but if you’d like one that won’t give you diabetes (I’m looking at you Dulce De Leche) I've got a great Bourbon sauce:
Bourbon Sauce:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
3 tablespoons Bourbon
Melt butter, sugar and heavy cream over low heat. Stir constantly until sugar is completely dissolved. Allow to simmer for 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from heat and SLOWLY add the bourbon. Stir completely. Serve warm. (You can make this without the heavy cream it is just a little runnier).
PS: This recipe makes a HUGE but shallow cheesecake (10” springform pan) or a thicker cheesecake in a 9" springform pan. BUT you can cut the recipe in half without loosing flavor/consistency. I do that and make one smaller cheesecake (6” springform pan), or two small cheesecakes (4” springform pan). I make a full batch, using the 4” pans to give away at Christmas. I can get 4 small cheesecakes from a full batch.
PPS: This cheesecake freezes well. I've eaten it after freezing for about 3 weeks and it was still delicious.
Images from https://stock.adobe.com
Sunday, March 3, 2024
This is a three tier pull down spice rack. It was the first thing I wanted on my list of wants for the new house. Finding one that wasn't a bazillion dollars though, that's another story. And Amazon didn't have any that were not expensive AND in stock at the same time.
I think I found this on some random website and bought it at 3 in the morning or something because I cannot for the life of me recall where I got it, I only know it showed up one day and I said, oh yea. I forgot about you.
This was trickier to install than the wine rack. I had to measure, mark, drill, remark and re-drill, remeasure, and again perform body contortions. But finally I got it. And it's one of the best things I've ever owned with regard to space saving projects.
ten out of ten recommend.
Thursday, February 29, 2024
DIY Re Upholstered Couch and Chair
When I first my new house, I fell in love with the small "formal" living room. I knew this would be the Christmas Tree room in December. That was the only plan I had. The room gets great eastern light and it's become my grow plants, lounge and read while the dogs nap on me, room. My son in law calls it the terrarium room.
Anyway, I knew that I wanted a loungy couch in here. So I found this red gem at a going out of business sale.
I searched for about a month until I found the material I wanted, a suede-y but easy to clean, soft and welcoming material in a smokey blue/grey. (I really wanted a deep, deep red wine color but I couldn't find material that was under $1,000).
So, after I found the material, I bought an electric staple gun, some
razor wire stuff (flexible metal tack strip), a staple puller, pliers, I watched at least 10 hours of videos on how to
reupholster your own furniture, and how to recover buttons and and tuft a
couch; then I bought more supplies, thousands of staples, buttons,
scissors, twine, and new legs for the couch because the that came on the
couch were gross.
I didn't take photos of the process, though I wish I would have because it would have been helpful for the next project.
It's hard to tell how good she really looks with the shadows and the indentation from my ass, but I'm proud of her.
I had almost a whole roll of material left so I decided I'd recover my old lady chair. She was a cool ten bucks at the Goodwill. I got her in 2015 and she is so comfortable. The dramas gave me endless shit for having an "old lady chair" until the first time they sat there. THE most comfortable chair for reading that I've ever owned. No joke.
BUT. I don't have room for her in this house. So I asked Drama #1 if she wanted the chair for her new house. She did. And I said I'd get right on it.
Narrator: she did not get right on it.
Instead, I got the seat recovered, and the inside front sections done and then my stapler broke. By the time I got a new one, it was summer; then I was really busy. And lazy. But mostly really busy. So the chair sat in the spare bedroom, half done, lonely and sad, waiting for me to finish. And finally I did. This month. Literally, two years after I started. I'm glad it's done and out of my house. Drama #1 is glad it's done. And I'm proud of this one too:
Monday, February 26, 2024
Wine Rack from Amazon
I was able to install the racks with just a screwdriver and some body conditioning. I'm very happy with how the racks turned out. Now I just need to get some cupboard doors with glass in them to complete the look.