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Tree of Life

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Sometimes, when your alter ego gets all worked up over something, you just have to let them work through it, even if it means that a Fab then doesn’t have time to write entertaining and enlightening posts to her darling readers. This has been the case the last several weeks.  That Mary has been all fraught with notions on The Tree of Life.

Ok, the notions didn’t take up all the time (when do they ever – except when Congressmen and Senators decide that a notion would play better as an emergency?).  Where was I?  Oh, notions not needing much of an investment of time or attention. Notions that turn into ideas and then decorative wall hangings are an entirely different matter.

Chalkware, instead of allowing the Fab to write and post,  that horrible Mary invested our time in drawing and carving, mould making and  mixing and poring and curing and painting. Well, she did.  This is what she did with our time.

Then this …

I don’t think she has it out of her system yet.  Mary was mumbling something about Saint Jude, Sunny, and Stars I hope she isn’t going to lump them all together.  She might though, never know.

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It is always all about the cheesecake

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Darlings, Note before you start — this recipe makes 3 nine inch round cheesecakes.

Cheesecake freezes beautifully.

What? You haven’t seen cheesecakes in the frozen foods section?  Of course you have.

Did you know that in the United States, July 30 is (the unofficial) National Cheesecake Day?

The Fab wonders at us, we are now declaring unofficial national holidays for pastry.

Big Batch Cheesecake

Crust
Preheat oven to 325 degrees
In medium sized bowl combine:
3 Cups all purpose flour
1/2 Cup sugar
1/2 Teaspoon baking powder
1/4 Teaspoon grated lemon peel (from real fresh lemons not the dried stuff in the jar)

Mix well, then add
1 Cup softened butter (real butter, I use salted butter, if you prefer sweet butter, that works fine too. I have no idea what fake butter or shortening will do to this recipe and I don’t want to know, if you try either, please do not tell me.)
Mix again until all ingredients are combined. You should be able to easily form a pliable ball from the dough with your hands.

Pliable like pie crust or play dough, not sticky.

If the dough seems stiff or wont form a ball – add water one tablespoon at a time until you can form a pliable ball.

Divide the dough into three pieces. Smash the dough into the bottom only of three nine inch spring form or straight sided cake layer pan. You can get all neat about it and roll the dough out and cut a nice circle then lay that in the bottom of the pan, but you were just smooshing the dough around with your hands to form a ball then divide it in three so you decide if you want to get out a rolling pin.
Bake the crust in your preheated (you did preheat — right?) oven for 10 minutes. You don’t want the crust to brown, just set, it will finish browning when you bake the cheesecake.

Cheesecake
Remove your pans from the oven, set aside to cool. Turn the oven temperature up to 350 degrees.
In a very large bowl combine
9 eight ounce packages of softened cream cheese.
3 cups sugar
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tablespoon grated lemon peel
1/2 tablespoon vanilla
Mix -Mix – Mix
then add
7 eggs (I use extra large eggs — but cheesecake is pretty forgiving so if you use large or jumbo it should not make a huge difference. If you use small eggs, you are on your own.)

3/4 cup 1/2 and 1/2

Mix until well combined. Pour cheesecake mixture into your prepared pans.

Bake at 350 degrees for around 50 minutes. Cheesecake is done when only the middle 2 inches of the cake jiggle when you move the pan slightly. Take the cakes out of the oven to cool. The middle will finish setting while the cake cools.

After the cake has cooled run a spatula around the outside of the cake to loosen it from the side of the pan. Do not remove the side of the spring form pan at this point. Cover cake with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator to chill at least four hours before serving. If you are going to freeze the cake, skip the refrigerator and put the plastic wrapped cake right into the freezer.

Raspberry Sauce
2 cups frozen whole raspberries
1 cup sugar
Place the raspberries and the sugar into a heavy saucepan. Heat over low heat until the berries are thawed and stirring combines the berries and the sugar into a liquid. Increase heat to medium. Cook, stirring frequently until the mixture reaches the “jell” stage on a candy thermometer.
Chill sauce and serve over slices of cheesecake.

One nine inch cake should be cut into at least 16 slices.

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Pillar of Fire

Monday, January 4, 2010

Ok, it LOOKED like a pillar of fire

Last night’s sunset was most spectacular Darlings.  Here, anyway the setting sun had what appeared to be a pillar of fire shooting right out of the top of the setting sun.

The photo doesn’t do it justice, of course, oh you can see the effect but the reality was truly spectacular.  Spectacular as in “is this a sign of the end of the world?” Breathtaking.  On the other hand it was very cold last evening, as the Fab stood in the snow staring gap jawed to the west.  So, the breathtaking might have been the cold air along with the unusual sunset.  The cold air certainly (as it turns out) was the cause of the “pillar of fire” which is in the non overly  enthusiastic non dramatic world where scientists live called a Sun Pillar.

Clearly if a scientist can explain it, and other folks have photographed it, the end of the world isn’t imminent.  At least from this light in the sky,

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Happy Thought – On a Cold Day

Sunday, January 3, 2010
Four degrees on a blazing bright January morning,
bright red wool socks, furry slippers,
jeans and a thick too worn to go anywhere
but to the couch  bright yellow ski sweater,
hot cup of coffee and a good book.
There Winter, take that!
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