National Cheesecake Day – No Bake Cheesecake

 
Today is National Cheesecake Day, so I thought I should post a cheesecake recipe. :-)  (This should be my brother Mike’s favorite “holiday”.)
Earlier this year I found this recipe online and decided to try it.  I made a few changes to the recipe.  It is much softer and lighter than a normal cheesecake in texture and taste since it is not baked, but as you can see from the whipping cream in the recipe it is not lighter caloriewise.  It’s not something you want to make once a week unless you need to gain weight. :-)

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No Bake Cheesecake

1 1/2 C. graham cracker crumbs
1/3 packed brown sugar
1/3 C. butter, melted
2 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese
2/3 C. sour cream
2 tsp. lemon juice
1 pint heavy whipping cream
1/3 C. white sugar
In small bowl, stir together graham cracker crumbs and brown sugar.  Add butter and mix well.  Press into the bottom of an 8 – 10 inch spring form pan.  Chill until firm.
In a medium bowl, beat together the cream cheese and lemon juice until sort. Mix in sour cream.  Add whipping cream and beat with electric mixer until batter becomes thick.  Add the sugar and continue to beat until stiff.  Pour into the chilled crust.  Chill several hours or overnight.
Add topping of your choice.  Remove sides of pan just before serving.

I served this with a homemade strawberry topping as you can see in the photos.  I made this topping by cooking a few strawberries, sweetening them and  then thickening them with corn starch.  I refrigerated the “gel” before adding the cut fresh strawberries.  It was delicious!  Much better than that pre-made stuff you can buy in plastic envelopes at the store.

Teatime and English Recipe Links

Joy of Baking – English or Afternoon Tea Party Recipes – The pictures say it all here.
Tea Time Recipes
Traditional English Recipes – This will require some conversion work since the measurements are mostly given by weight. Here is an online converter to help with the process. Here is a chart that gives the equivalents for heat temperatures in the oven.

This was my grandma’s teapot which I think she may have gotten in England or Ireland.

National Ice Cream Day

July 21st is National Ice Cream Day.

My family has made our own ice cream off and on for years.  Here are some photos of one ice cream making event in 2005.

Daddy and Dan operate the machine with supervision from Mom.

This was taken in Tennessee and was the last time we used our “old fashioned” ice cream maker.  Obviously, it is not the old crank handle kind.  My parents now have a counter top ice cream maker that works much faster, though it makes a smaller amount and is only slightly less noisy than this old one was.

The fruit of their labors. (Mom’s kitchen in Tennessee.)

YUM!!!

Breakfast Rambling - Loving the Laodiceans

Psalm 85:8 I will hear what God the LORD will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly.

It is amazing how much folly there is in the Lord’s church today. There is such worldliness and tolerance of unbiblical practices and traditions that it is appalling. Yet you can see that at least some of these people want to be known as Christians and to appear to stand for something.

The Laodicean church of Revelation chapter 3 was still discernibly a “Christian” church. We see that God did and does still love them and want them to repent for He says in Revelation 3:19, As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. And, this despite the fact that He had just told them they were, “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked”! (Rev. 3:17)

Though we cannot join them nor approve their ways it behooves us to remember that “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth”! (Hebrews 12:6 – emphasis added.) He does still love these believers and desires to see them turn from folly. Those who try to avoid the spiritual “pollutions of the world” (2 Peter 2:20) should too. Rather than feeling self-righteous, we should be grieved and our hearts should hurt to see those whom God loves walking in ways that are contrary to His word. Sometimes it is hard because they don’t understand the error of their ways and are offended if we extend a rebuking observation toward them, but it is keeping with the mind of Christ for us to maintain godly love toward them.

1John 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

Vinegar Cucumber Salad

Here’s an old family favorite of ours. My mom and grandma both used to make this light, tangy salad in the summer. It is almost more like pickles than salad. Since it’s served cold it is refreshing during hot weather.
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2 Cucumbers, peeled and sliced
1 small onion, sliced
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup water
2 Tbs sugar
Mix all ingredients and refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Serve cold.

A couple food poems to lighten your day

The Turkey Shot Out of the Oven – A great humorous item to use at Thanksgiving time or any time you serve a turkey dinner.

Whining and Dining – Yes, I actually did write this one – for whatever it’s worth.

Another unlikely poem that involves food:

A Roman Miracle (I think this one comes from Ireland.)

From My Kitchen Window

I have one window in my kitchen.  It is opposite the sink and counter where I work, so I don’t get to look out of it while I’m working much.  But, I do get to see interesting things from that vantage point from time to time. 

Actually, there is a sort of window over the kitchen sink, but it opens into the living room now since some former owner of this place made a large living room/sun room addition (a room for which I’m very thankful).  The window where I can see outside was originally the dining area window, so it is a full length window, though not wide.

Not everyone has the unique experience of having a peacock peeking in their kitchen window.  It was a bit startling at first, but he is really harmless, though apparently quite curious.

This bird is a stray that showed up at our neighbor’s house at some point.  She doesn’t know where he came from, though there are some other “wild” peacocks in the area.  She calls him “Petey”.

I think Petey first got interested in hanging around outside the kitchen window when I had birdseed in the feeder out there.  He seemed to think that it was for him. :-)  It *was* the perfect height!  (That is my parents’ grill on the left.  It was later moved to their deck.)

I haven’t seen him for some time now, but he was a regular visitor around here for quite a while.  He wandered with the neighbor’s guinea fowl, and seemed to think that he should show off for the females sometimes and that he was responsible to look out for the flock.

A female pea fowl – a peahen – showed up here this last spring, and sometime after that Petey stopped hanging around so much, although he was very interested in her at first.  She raised a brood of chicks (Petey’s??) under our bedroom window – and after hatching all 6 eggs managed to lose the whole lot within a day or so.  (There are a lot of small animal predators around this area, including feral cats.)

Here is Petey with the peahen as seen from my kitchen window.  (I have tried to refrain from naming her as I don’t want to get too attached to her!  I’m too sentimental to be getting attached to a stray peahen that doesn’t know who she belongs to!)

There has been another peacock around sometimes too, but he is not as friendly, or as nosey, as Petey! :-)