So sue me.

Hello, everyone! The Fresh Pioneer is back with a recipe that is neither fresh, nor pioneer-y. (That’s a word, I promise.) But here's a pretty photo to tide you over until we get back to the vegetables.

 

 So, every now and then we have a birthday around here and strangely enough, no one EVER asks for spinach-cranberry salad with walnuts on top. Weird. Anyway, my ten year old is having a birthday and she LOVES to make cheesecake. Any dessert recipe and she’s all over it, getting the real butter out of the fridge, blending in the sugar, etc.  (Can you hear my diet shattering into many tiny pieces??) So, this post is brought to you by Ana and her love of chocolate.

                   The recipe we use is pretty traditional, except we make a just a few changes.

The back of this box says 3 eggs.

            Aren’t they pretty??

 We use two eggs. 

(NOT EIGHT LIKE THE PICTURE! That was just to show off.)

 It's a long story but it all started the day the chickens would NOT COOPERATE and we NEEDED CHEESECAKE. I mean, how rude. That's why we let them prowl around the yard and eat all the bugs and peck at our toes and poo on the porch. Why ELSE would they get to run around like that every  morning, eh? Anyway, we only had two eggs... and it was better. Richer. Creamier. Fudgier. Mmmmmmm.

                                                                
                             

                                  Anyway. We don’t mess with the chocolate. One box, melted. (Those just might be lick marks on the spoon. Not mine. I would never do that.)

  Three packages of full fat cream cheese, warmed. Shoot me now.

 

         1 cup of sugar. Mmmmmm….

Mix. Add 1 tsp vanilla AND 1 tsp of raspberry flavoring. (Really, you can add anything, but we like the raspberry.)

The usual base of crushed graham crackers (half of one box) and butter (5 tbs) and sugar (4 tbs). Press into spring form pan.

The kids fight over who gets to crush the graham crackers. I’ve learned this is an outside project. Graham cracker crumbs get tracked EVERYWHERE.

 Now the directions say 350F for 50 minutes but my oven must run hot because it's always more like 40 minutes. We don't want burned cheesecake. That would be TRAGIC.

A bazillion hours later when the entire family has gnawed their hands to nubs because the house SMELLS SO GOOD, it’s chilled and we get to slice and eat.

        Ooooh. Gratuitous cheesecake shot. So rich, so creamy.

                                         Ahhhhhh. One more, with raspberry sauce.  This was my actual slice. I'm surprised I could contain myself long enough to get a picture. And yes, the raspberries are a fruit and healthy so it had NO CALORIES.

Next time, we’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming of FRESH FOOD!!! But you know, birthdays only come once a year so we celebrate in style!!

  Thank goodness we have eight people here… and holidays…

P.S. It's Julia Child's 100th birthday! Here's a little clip of some of her funniest moments. Enjoy!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/14/best-julia-childs-clips-videos_n_1776189.html