Cookin it, old skool

It's still freaking hot, and I wanted cheesecake. Fortunately I have friends with recipes. Old Skool Recipes.

And zombie movies.

And what better to eat during a zombie movie than cherry cheesecake! Screw popcorn, chips, and nachos. If you're really going to get into things, you need to match the food to the flick. And we needed braaaaaiiinss.

Cherry brains!

On top of gooey, golden, lemony cheesecake.

No Bake Cheese Cake

What you need:

Crust:

• ~3 c graham cracker crumbs
• ~1/2 c butter

Filling:

• 1 8 oz block of cream cheese
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tin of evaporated milk
• 1 pkg of lemon jello (no, really!)

Topping:

• 1 c water
• 1 c sugar
• 1 c dried cherries

What you gotta do:

We started with the topping. Combine the water and sugar in a medium pot over medium heat.

 

Once the sugar has dissolved and the syrup has started to bubble, add the cherries.

 

The plan here is to rehydrate these fabulous little things (omg they are the tastiest most luxurious dried fruit ever) and let their deliciousness infuse the basic sryup. The plan. That's it.

While the cherries are simmering, dump the crumbs into a 9 x 11 pan and spread them out. Drizzle the melted butter over them and start mixing.

 

A spoon is fine, but you'll probably end up getting your hands in there eventually to press it down into the pan. You want no more than 1/2 inch thick.

So, these next steps get a little dishes intensive, but hey, we're not at my house so I'm okay with that. :P

Start with the medium bowl and pour in the evaporated milk.

With a hand mixer, beat the milk for a few minutes. I'm thinking that you could also use whipping cream here, but you wouldn't want to whip it too much. Just enough to fluff it up, but not enough that you get peaks.

Take that off to the fridge to chill while you dirty more bowls. 

Next is the cream cheese. Dump it in the big bowl with vanilla and lemon juice.

Works best at room temp, but an electric mixer will bring it into line pretty quickly. Beat it up with the vanilla and the lemon juice. We didn't have lemons on hand, but the bottle will suffice in a pinch.

And in the third bowl, combine the lemon jello with one cup of boiling water. I'm thinking that you could get a sharper, brighter lemon flavour in this step if you went with plain gelatin and some lemon zest, but as I mentioned, no lemon, so we jello'd it. 

And if you mix it with the spoon that you used to scrap the sides of the cream cheese bowl, you get all kinds of fun cheesey floaties in the jello.

Don't worry, it's all going to end up in the same place. Let it cool for a bit so that you're not adding boiling hot stuff to your cold things. Hm. This step maybe should have come a little sooner. Oh well, it all worked out in the end. The cheesecake did.

And in it goes.

Cooled lemon gelatine mixture, chilled beaten evaporated milk (or whipped cream, if that's what you opted for) into the big bowl of lemony, vanillay cream cheese.

And beat it some more! Power tools are fun.

Once you've got it all combined and whipped up into a frothy gooey mess, pour it onto the crust.

Oh crap, the cherries.

Remove them from the heat and let them cool while the cheesecake chills in the fridge for a couple hours. It will be just barely jiggly when it's ready.

The cheesecake layer ended up a little shallower than we were hoping,

so you could do this in a smaller pan to get a ratio weighted more to the cheesecake, just make sure that you decrease the crumb amout so you're still below the half inch mark.

Now, the plan for the cherries (you remember the plan, right?) was to have a nice gooey syrupy pile of brains to pour on top of our cheesecake. Um.

Yes, that is the spoon stuck to the pot.

I highly recommend not boiling the cherries for as long as we did. And I have no idea how long we boiled them. Don't do that.

We ended up with something more like toffee than syrup. Very stringy toffee.

But, a little more heat was enough to get it moving again and we were able to blob some onto the cheesecake. The rest, we poured into a gratuitously buttered pan.

Cherry. Toffee. Okay, some things are good ideas after all. Chewy, stick your teeth together good.

Of course, the warm toffee melted the cold cheesecake, but it sure tasted good and it really did look like... BRAAAAAAAIIIIIINS!!!!

 

Now that you've got your braaaaiins, thick and chewy braaaaaiiiiins, all you need is a copy of Dead Snow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-KQh87_V2Q

Watch for the cherry topping. It's there.

I once knew a guy who would eat baked beans out of a pot with a wooden spoon while waching westerns so he could get right into the characters. Me, I'm happy with cherry brains for my zombie cheesecake.

What's your favourite food and movie combo?

Pasta: Salad the Sequel

Yeah, I know, I made a salad last week.  But really, watermelon salad and pasta salad can hardly be considered part of the same category.  Besides, during these hot summer months, what sounds better than some kind of cool salad?  They’re simple, refreshing, and delicious. 

There are a million and one ways to make a pasta salad.  Here’s what you’ll need for the one I threw together today:

1 pound pasta (uncooked)
¼ pound cheese
1 bell pepper
1 cup grape tomatoes
¾ - 1 pound bacon (uncooked)
¾ cups mayo
¼ cup mustard
3 Tablespoons vinegar
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1 Tablespoon sugar
¼ cup chives

Oops.  Somehow I forgot to include bacon in my picture.

In spite of my repeated trips to Home Goods, Target, and Kohl’s, and my many deliveries from Amazon, I still haven’t managed to procure a sheet pan.  Yes, I really did get rid of everything when I moved.  So although the real thing is a gazillion times better, if you happen to be in a predicament like me, or it’s just too hot to turn on the oven (I refuse to go back to cooking bacon on the stove) go ahead and use the precooked stuff.  Just make sure to crisp it up in the microwave first. 

The first thing we need to do is get the dressing made and out of the way.  In a small bowl combine the mayo, mustard, vinegar, salt, pepper, and sugar. 

Chop your chives.

Then throw them into the bowl, whisk everything together and pop it into the fridge. 

Cook your pasta according to the package directions, then drain it and rinse with cold water. 

While the pasta is cooking, feel free to work on your chopping.  Just don’t forget to stir from time to time.

Any color bell pepper will be fine.  I chose green because they looked the best.  Dice it up into fairly small pieces.  If you cut strips and line them up, it makes the process quick and easy. 

Halve your tomatoes, or quarter them if they’re really big.  If you can get your hands on a variety of different colors of the little guys, they’re fun and fabulous in something like this.  (Whoa!  That was a little too Rachael Ray like for my comfort.)

I used an extra sharp cheddar.  I love the texture of cheddar, and the tang of one that’s been really aged… Yum! 

Dice it up, followed by the bacon and throw them all in a bowl with your (now cold) pasta. 

Pour on your dressing and stir gently until everything is evenly distributed and coated. 

I like to just load up a bowl and eat it as a meal, but it’s also a fabulous side to whatever you’re grilling this weekend. 

Do you have a favorite pasta salad?