Valentine's offerings

[vaneramos]

The Sunday night gathering was small, just the four of us plus token_otter. We started with a few rousing rounds of Simon, a '70s electronic game danthered bought on e-bay recently. bitterlawngnome posted a photo.

Bill prepared a main course of chicken paprikash and a delicious pilaf of bulgur with fruit. For dessert I made a Valentine's offering: chocolate cheesecake. Cheesecake seems to be becoming one of my things. This one had the taste and consistency of a truffle, and was richer than the white chocolate blueberry cheesecake I raved about at Christmas. It was delectable.

This evening I'm home, toiling over the other labour of love, putting finishing touches on the chapbook, An Elegant Path. It;s now ready to print.

I considered setting up a web page to take orders, but, in the interest of efficiency, will do everything by email for now instead. Don't order yet. I'll make a special post about the chapbook tomorrow once I've checked on postage.

I intend to combine any proceeds from An Elegant Path with my income tax return to put towards a new camera. So if you enjoy seeing my creative endeavours, this will be a great way to support them.


Chocolate cheesecake

Crust:

1¼ cup chocolate wafer cookie crumbs¹
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup melted butter

Mix crust ingredients and pat into a 9 or 10 inch spring-form pan. Bake 10 minutes at 350°F.

Filling:

24 oz. cream cheese
1½ cup sugar
3 eggs
1 cup sour cream
12 oz. melted chocolate
1 t. vanilla

Mix cream cheese and sugar together, blending well. Add eggs one at a time. Add sour cream, vanilla, then add melted chocolate. Pour onto the crust.

Heat oven and add 8 cups boiling water to a pan and place on bottom oven shelf. This will provide moisture.

Bake at 400°F for 15 minutes, turn oven down to 225°F and bake another 50 minutes or until set in the centre. Turn oven off and let cheesecake set with oven door cracked 1 hour. Chill.

¹I used Oreo cookie crumbs, the kind that come packaged specifically for this purpose, with no added sugar for the crust. Two cups of crumbs were required for a 10-inch pan.

Comments

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

Oh ghod, that cheesecake was to die for.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

It's definitely a make-again!

[halation.livejournal.com]

so exciting, the chapbook!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

You are an inspiration.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

There will be other cheesecakes, my friend.

Valentine's Day hugs,
Van

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

Thanks for explaining about Simon. I was genuinely puzzled by it. I was REALLY out of the pop culture loop from the late 70s down through about 1989.

The cheesecake sounds totally divine!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I have always been out of the pop culture loop, in fact I still am in some ways. I experienced culture shock the first while I hung around with Bill, Daniel and Danny. But none of us watch TV now, and that is fine.

I don't remember Simon, either. Daniel, Danny and Stephen did, but they were all younger than me. I was 15 when this game came out, a little old for it then. Now I am not.