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?

Moving Mayhem - Bread Pudding Edition

Well, it’s really happening.  The move is finally here.  But before we go, I need to use up some of my special ingredients.  I just can’t bring myself to throw something like vanilla beans in the trash.  After much thought, I decided bread pudding would be a great means of emptying my cupboards. 

Here's what you'll need:

4 large croissants
2 eggs
2 cups half and half
1 ½ cups vanilla sugar
1 vanilla bean
1 teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 Tablespoon brown rice syrup
½ teaspoon salt

Although I highly recommend having these ingredients on hand, I understand that you may not have all of them.  If you don’t have vanilla sugar, you can certainly make it for next time.  Just save the used vanilla bean, let it dry, and put it in a container with some sugar.  If you don’t have a vanilla bean, you’ll just have to go buy one… or I guess you could make a different flavor of bread pudding.

Ok, let’s get this show on the road.  First thing you need to do is butter the bottom and sides of a square pan.  8 or 9 inch will work just fine. 

Next, preheat the oven to 350°.  Then, tear your croissants into smallish pieces.

When you’ve done them all, it should look something like this:

Next comes the custard.  Crack two eggs into a mixing bowl or you can use a 4 cup measuring cup like me. 

Beat the eggs slightly, add the half and half, sugar, salt and vanilla extract, and whisk until you have little bubbles on top.  Then add the syrup. 

More whisking, then finally, the fun part… the vanilla bean.  With a sharp knife, slice it lengthwise down the middle. 

With the back side of your knife (not the sharp part) open one half of the pod and scrape out the seeds. 

Set the other half aside for now.  Plop the vanilla seeds into your egg mixture. 

Whisk whisk whisk!  You’ll see the seeds mostly separate.  Little clumps will probably remain, but don’t fret. 

Now for the spices.  First comes the nutmeg.  Freshly grated only please. 

Seriously, don’t use the pregrated stuff in a bottle.  You can get a nutmeg grater rather inexpensively, and then you’ll always have good nutmeg on hand.  The stuff in the bottle loses its flavor so quickly, but the whole nuts are good for just about ever. 

Last but not least is the cinnamon.  This is another thing that loses its flavor quickly, but the good stuff you can’t grind yourself, so just buy it frequently.  If you can find it in bulk, it’s a good way to get it.  Whisk one last time, getting everything incorporated and pour it over your croissant pieces. 

Press down so that every piece gets a chance to absorb all of that vanilla goodness. 

Into the oven it goes for 35 – 40 minutes.  When I finally looked up from what I was doing, I was met by this precious site. 

We’ve finally left the snow behind (I think) and Otto isn’t taking one moment of sunshine for granted.  So, I’m probably biased, but I could just look at that cutie pie all day.  Ok, back to bread pudding.  When it’s done, it should be nice and golden brown on top and a knife inserted into the center should come out clean.

Allow it to cool for at least 20 minutes before cutting.  You can even cool it completely, refrigerate it, and serve it cold.  Either way is fabulous.  While it’s cooling, let’s start on the vanilla bean whipped cream.  Pour 1 tablespoon of sugar onto a plate.  With the back of your knife, scrape the seeds from the remaining vanilla bean half and add it to the sugar.

With a fork, smoosh them together.  (yes, smoosh is a technical term)     

In a glass measuring cup, measure one cup of heavy cream and add the vanilla/sugar mixture. 

Whip until you get stiff peaks.  (Is it only romance writers whose minds go instantly into the gutter with a phrase like that?) 

Look at all those little vanilla seeds in there.  Isn’t it pretty?  Now, cut your bread pudding into squares and serve with a dollop of whipped cream and some chopped nuts.  I had pistachios I needed to use up. 

Take a bite and be swept away to vanilla heaven.  Nothing beats the flavor of real vanilla beans. 

So, if you were moving, and had to give up everything in your kitchen, which of your ingredients would you be sure to use up?