Light New York Cheesecake Pie 5 points

Luckily, only one of the recipes from our Bake 52 group have interested me so far.  I say "luckily" because I am currently on a good final 10 pounds of baby-weight be gone plan.  I attribute this to stronger coffee and this crazy weird blend of Omega oils I've been taking.  Shooting 3 tablespoons of oil/day is bad enough.  If I had any interest in the things I've been baking, the oil shooters would be for naught.  So, really, I should give this cheesecake a 10.  5 points for the recipe and 5 bonus points for being unattractive.  I should also mention that I don't have a spring form pan and was way too tired to go out and get one.  Some of the other members of the Bake 52 club mentioned using a pie plate.  I bought a Le Creuset pie plate at Marshalls for $12 about three years ago.  I still feel like I need to justify buying it since I don't like pie and, until quiche, had never made one.

There was a time that I loved cheesecake.  That time was about 20 years ago.  My Aunt Piggy (No jab here, she is a beautiful lady.  But I remember thinking she had the same name as Miss Piggy, but she was my aunt hence Aunt Piggy.  Turns out her name is Peggy.  With an e.)  and her husband took me to Bobby McGee's for dinner.  For anyone familiar with the Greater Los Angeles Area, this is now commonly known as BJ's off of Olive Ave and the 5 Fwy.  But back then it was Bobby McGee's and that was a song Aunt Piggy sang a lot so I thought this was pretty magical.  After dinner she ordered a slice of cheesecake for us to share.  When the cheesecake arrived, my uncle was on a bit of a diatribe about how L.A. was full of plastic people.  I dug into my cheesecake, not really understanding what exactly plastic surgery was.  When I asked he replied, "It's how they make your body parts over.  Jesus, you could have your ears sewn onto your ass these days."  In response, my Aunt Piggy lifted one cheek off the seat and said, "What's that?  I couldn't hear you."  I died.  Cheesecake went up my nose and down my windpipe all at the same time.  I puked on the table, in my lap, and the whole way to the bathroom.  Forgive me if I don't have any interest in cheesecake whatsoever.

Besides being a less than tempting treat for me personally, nobody else in my house likes cheesecake either.  I went into this week knowing that even if I managed to bake the best light cheesecake known to man, it would not be appreciated.  In fact, I almost didn't bake it at all. We had family in town this weekend and we had been eating out a lot.  Cheesecake sounded even less desirable than it usually would.  But I had already bought the ingredients and I felt guilt slacking so early on in the year.  Mr. Ginger had class last night, so I went for it.  It sucked.  I can honestly say I did not enjoy this project in the least.  Cheesecake is the bitchier cousin to quiche.  All of the par-baking and cooling, and wrapping and refrigerating and sitting and waiting.  Ugh.  Suck it up and just be dessert, already!  In fact, that pain in my butt is still sitting in my refrigerator in the garage because I truly do not care enough to finish the whole ordeal.  Once again, I would like to state that any beef I have with a recipe is all on me.  I don't blame the recipe, the book or the  hostess (Ms. Talesha of www.otherthingsnice.blogspot.com) in any way, shape, or form.  Once you see her post about this week's recipe, you will understand.  It's not the cheesecake.  It's me.

I tried to do a better job of photographing my experience for this week's challenge. I'm mostly just convinced that I need a new camera for making pretty pictures like all of those crafty ladies on Pinterest mange to take.  If anyone has a hand-me-down their looking to pawn, let me know!

Here's how I began.  See?  I really did start out trying!  Here is Red Flag #1 that cheesecake and I weren't compatible.  I had to drain cottage cheese for 30 minutes before I could begin.  Red Flag #2? Yogurt Cheese.  I consider myself something of a yogurt snob and I live in San Diego.  It's not like finding weird ingredients is hard.  Except for yogurt cheese.  Turns out Greek Yogurt works just fine.  Whew.

Next, I made crust.  I will admit, this is my kind of crust.  E-A-S-Y.  Had the recipe stopped here, I might have been on board.

 

The Finished Crust

Next I blended and blended and blended all of the wet ingredients.  I was feeling pretty swanky for having fresh Meyer Lemon zest from my own yard.

Since I made my cheesecake in a pie plate, I had a lot left over.  I tried no-crust cheesecake cups.

My Mostly Naked Sous Chef, The Dude.

The Final Product

I have a good feeling about next week.  I think it's going to be a recipe that I can really sink my teeth into (get it?)  Keep an eye out for 7-Layer Bars.  Yummmm.
If you think the Bake 52 idea is pretty cool, despite my inability to execute most recipes properly, check out the other (more skilled) bakers in our group!

Boston Cream Cupcakes 8 points (by proxy)

"I don't love custard unless it is frozen," she types, as her heart heaves and pangs of sorrow shoot through her body.  "It's freezing cold down here in this basement of mine, but sweet heaven above what I would do to a Nielsen's milkshake right now."

        

But moving on... When I saw that these cupcakes would require homemade custard, I really stopped caring about the cupcakes and focused on how I could turn the pastry custard in to frozen custard.  Boston Cream anything mostly makes me feel a little funny in my gag reflex area, so these weren't all that motivating for me.  But, I plugged along with the indispensable help of Aunt Mint, who took over custard duty and then created a superb glaze. (Note: We did this during nap time.  We are kind of like super-heroes, but lamer and in yoga pants instead of flame-retardant Kevlar tights.)  I baked the cakes, filled, and glazed.  I was convinced that I had destroyed the cakes by the time they came out of the oven  The batter was so weirdly frothy before baking that when they came out more like individual shortcakes, I almost gave up.  Luckily Mint looked at the pictures in the cookbook (brilliant!) and pointed out that my cakes looked identical to their cakes.  Score!  We cored the cooled cakes, fed the middles to our mouths and The Dude, and filled those bad boys up with (gag) Boston Cream.  The glaze really turned things around for me, though.  We didn't have bittersweet chocolate like the recipe calls for, so we used Ghirardelli semi-sweets that were left over from making blondies last week (a blondie is what I call dessert!  These things were divine!)  The glaze turned out perfectly!  And in the microwave, too!  No double boiler, constant stirring, etc.  Just throw some sticky, calorie laden items into a sweet vintage Pyrex bowl and stir.  Done!  I really enjoyed glazing the cakes.  It made me feel super fancy and skilled.  I think I will give up teaching, daycare, parenting, wifery and breathing in order to pursue a career at Sprinkles as a froster.  I figure it's still a step-up from my original dream career of wanting to be the person who poured Slurpees at 7-11.  I lived in Huntington, Utah.  I didn't know that patrons pour their own Slurpees.  I was out of a job before I ever had one.  Bummer.

I didn't mind any one of this recipes components alone.  But when you put them together it is like they meld into my word nightmare.  Gooey, moist, sticky, glorified donuts.  However, Aunt Mint, The Dude, and Mr. Ginger all agreed that these cakes are something special.  Since I clearly cannot be objective, I have to trust their ratings.  Even Grandma Steve, who like me, is not a custard, pastry-type lady enjoyed one.

You should know that I have a lot of guilt for not being able to wax poetic about these cupcakes.  In all fairness, the recipe isn't terribly difficult, the cakes turn out beautifully, the custard tastes nice, the glaze is delectable, and they present like a dream.  The final consensus?  I'm a little bit insane, and pastry dose nothing for me.  You, however, should try these cupcakes.  Even if you don't live in Boston.  Here is the recipe, courtesy of my lovely cousin, Mrs. Amanda Tatton.

 

Bran is Not Sexy. Bran Muffins- 8 points

Bran Muffin.  This does not conjure images of busty women smoking cigarettes in black and white film noir alleys.  It does not make one long for her college days and that steamy summer fling in Puerto Vallarta (I have never been, personally, but it seems like a great place for college-aged girls to make steamy bad choices).  Bran Muffin.  Nope.  Nothing.  I think of old people.  And poop.  Let's be honest.  Does anyone not think of poop when they hear "bran muffin."  You're a liar.  Yes you do.  In fact, Harajuku Mommy just stopped by to pick up the Harajuku Girl, and she was stoked to see bran muffins coming out of the oven.  "Yeahhhh.  I'm taking one of these and a cup of coffee on my way to work tomorrow!"  See?  Poop.

Mr. Ginger loves muffins.  He would leave me for a well baked, over sized muffin with some kind of fruit inside and those huge sugar crystals on top.  Fair enough.  I'd leave him for the perfect cheese.  No hard feelings here.  But he does not like a bran muffin.  So when I told him this week's recipe was poo muffins, he said, "Nooooo. Can't you make something good?"  Sorry Valerie, I thought they were a great idea.

Anyway, fast forward to the muffins.  Not nearly as hard to bake as my procrastination assumed they would be.  I decided to mix up the original recipe, found here, by adding raisins, craisins, and dried apples.  I figured the more fruit variety the better.  I guess a Raisin, Cranberry, Apple Muffin sounds better than bran.  Braaaaaannnnn.  It's like the word bran hails from the Midwest or something.

I followed the directions, threw them in the oven and voila!  Muffins!  I can't claim they are as good as a Henry's Bran Muffin or a Starbucks Bran Muffin, but I would venture to say they are probably healthier.  And really, if you're eating a bran muffin in the first place you're probably under the delusion of being healthy.  Somehow my recipe yielded more than the book said it would.  I ended up with 12 regular muffins, 12 mini muffins, and 2 ginormous muffins. Mr. Ginger and Harajuku Mommy raved!  I feel pretty good about this since Mr. Ginger was so down-trodden over bran being the pick of the week.  I don't think it hurt that I was wearing my apron, mascara, and earrings all on the same day.  I think I may have blown his mind with my June Cleavage, er, Cleaver.





Once again, I didn't do the best of jobs taking pictures.  The Dude has an ear infection and a bad attitude and was screaming at me the entire time.  Perhaps my greatest feat today was not so much defying all logic by making a delicious poop muffin, but managing to hold strong and follow through with proper behavior modification techniques in attempt to break my child of tantrums.  By the third time he came out of his room, he said, "Hi Mom.  Good?  Eat?  Nice?"  I guess he figured out that he needed to eat without throwing food at the dogs and that screaming at one's mother is not nice.  Or maybe his tiny little 20 month old brain forgot what he was so pissed off about in the first place, and he smelled baked goods (kid loves muffins.  Maybe more than his dad does.)  Maybe that's what led to the change in attitude.  Don't care.  Doesn't matter.

Happy Baby.  Happy Husband.  Happy Colon.

These muffins earn an 8.

Quiche- 5 points

As part of the "Feed the Gingers" New Year Resolution, I have joined Bake 52.  For each of the Bake 52 recipes I bake this year, I will award 0-10 points.  The points awarded will be based on ease, success, taste, appearance and popularity among my testers.  This is completely subjective and most likely unfair to the recipes.  Our first recipe comes courtesy of Ms. Clare Petersen Utley at Tylerandclare@blogspot.com and our fabulous Bake 52 cookbook, The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book.  

I was terrified to make quiche, so naturally I decided to bake it for Christmas breakfast.  If it was going to bomb, I wanted everyone to suffer.  On Christmas Eve I made the crust, which was my first point of error.  I made the cheater crust because I have never ever ever made a crust before and I was intimidated.  Although the easy crust from the book was super yummy, it is most likely a pie crust.  Like, fruit or chocolate pie, not egg/spinach/feta pie.  But whatever.  It worked.  Quiche has a lot of rules.  Quiche is like a stuck up sorority freshman at an Ivy League school.  

"Don't make it too early.  Don't let it sit too long, but it needs to sit for HOURS before eating.  The crust needs to be warm when you add the eggs.  Not TOO warm... great!  You ruin everything!"

Anyway, after crunching the numbers in my head, I realized that breakfast quiche requires you to wake up early, so I did everything I could to prep it the night before.  I still had to get up early on Christmas Day (who am I kidding?  We have a toddler.  We were up.)  Luckily my sweet Mr. Ginger remember the delicate nature of a quiche's temperament, probably from being married to me, and preheated the oven before 7:00 a.m.  Good thing too, because my Bailey's and Coffee had not kicked in and I surely was not thinking of pastry.   

Whilst Ms. Prissy Pants Quiche baked, we opened presents and look what Grandma Steve got me!

I am classy lass to say the least, and I FINALLY have oven mitts and an apron. I opened them just in time to remove Her Ladyship Quiche from the oven.  As you can see from the first picture, the crust got a little too brown on the edges. Other than that and the sweet crust issue, it was better than I would have expected.    The filling was lovely and I'm not sure I can find fault with anything eggy, cheesy AND spinachy.  I am not sure I'll be making it again anytime soon, though.  If I make a quiche it will be this one from Real Simple:

                                          

Mr. Ginger and I have made this one a few times and it is fool-proof.  LOVE.  But, it isn't exactly gratifying the way that baking something utterly self-righteous is.  All in all, we're off to a good start!  Happy New Year, y'all!

New Year's Resolution

Mojito Cake

I really miss cooking and baking.  Back in NoVA I cooked all kinds of fun stuff.  At one point, Miss Mississippi and I had an unofficial "bake-off" going.  My specialties included Mojito Cake, Plum Port Tart, Cheesy Cauliflower Soup, Shepherd's Pie and Tikka Masala (ok- that may have been Mr. Ginger's specialty.)  Point being, we moved, I got knocked up which led to lots of food aversions, and then Grandma Steve started cooking in bulk so that I could survive what I fondly think of as the Dark Age and... I stopped cooking.  But I love, love, love to cook.  It's so therapeutic and rewarding.  I love using all of the gadgets and experimenting with interesting ingredients.  When I bought the Cake Love cookbook, I read the entire thing because Warren Brown not only provides the recipes to his cult classics, but he also includes lots of cooking and baking lessons between cakes.  If you have never experienced a Cake Love cake, I highly recommend a trip to D.C.  If that's not feasible, just order the cookbook.  You'll be glad you did. 

Now that I am a WAHM (work at home mom, in case you're checking me out in the singles ads), I want to get back into the habit of cooking.  Most days Grandma Steve comes over to help with daycare, and sometime around 2:00 pm she says, "So what should I make you for dinner?"  Is this awesome?  Yes.  Are you jealous?  More than likely.  And although I by no means plan to stop taking advantage of this glorious situation, I need to get back into the swing of things.  The reason my mom is the best cook ever is because she cooks.  I want the Dude to refer to me as the best (or maybe second best) cook ever, so I think I'd better step up my game. 

Here's the plan:
1) I am going to participate in my cousin's baking club called Bake 52.  When it is my turn to host, I will blog here about the recipe I have chosen.  Every other week I will post pictures/comments to that host's blog.  This means that in 2012 I will bake at least 52 items.  That's probably more recipes than I have cooked and baked in the last year combined! 
2) I am going to attempt to cook at least one vegetarian recipe per week.  If you have any suggestions, please let me have them because this is a big goal for a carnivore like me and other than Cooking Light I don't know where to start.

So, a month early, here is my official and public New Year's Resolution.  I am going to cook.  Often.  And if you bring the wine, I'll feed you.

Fall.  Autumn.  Also know as the segue between Hot and Cold.  Fall is like...it's like when your hot chocolate gets too cold drink as hot chocolate, but it's still too warm to talk yourself into believing it's just chocolate milk.  Or, maybe it's like when you have the flu and you have a fever so you know you need to cool off, but you're somehow freezing and you just want to crawl into bed and shove a blow dryer under the covers near your feet.  It's this weird in between season that doesn't really have that much to offer.  School is in full swing, there aren't many vacation days happening, the sun starts to disappear and your body starts to crave everything cream and butter just when you drop a pants size.  No?  You don't feel that way?  You think Fall is amazing?  Huh.  That's weird.  I'm pretty sure Fall is just the price we have to pay for Summer and Christmas, but to each his own.

Here in San Diego, Fall is both Indian Summer and cold/flu/allergy season.  The Santa Ana's blow through and dry everyone out, but at least we get to bask in a few stolen days (ok, weeks) of hot hot heat when we know deep down inside we should be wearing boots and scarves and attractive hats.  In October we had three, maybe four, really cold rainy days and in my haste I put all of the Dude's shorts away.  I promptly pulled them back out when the thermometer reached 80°.

For a few years now I have been trying really hard to jump on the Fall bandwagon.  I think that eventually it will happen.  (I'm simultaneously trying to learn to love a Bloody Mary, and I wonder if the two could maybe join forces to help foster a love for one another other?)  I love Halloween (which was like, 78° here) and I think soup is the perfect food.  Those two factors alone are not altogether a bad jumping off point.  It is slowly growing on me.  I think my relationship with Fall will progress as my waistline widens.  So here is my game plan for loving Fall:

1.  Make Persimmon Cake again (did this once when we were part of a CSA, and ate the whole thing- I was pregnant.  Back off.)
2.  Craft the perfect Mulled Wine
3.  Take more pictures of the Dude being adorable in knitted outfits and other absurd baby sundry.
4.  Spend more time on Pintrest looking at cool Fall crap that I won't ever actually make myself.
5.  Start a not necessarily Fall tradition that is 100% fail proof awesome and schedule it for Fall so that it becomes a Fall Tradition and I can feel like I cheated the system. (i.e. Wine Tasting)
6.  Buy some skinny jeans and a pair of Frye boots to stuff them into.
7.  Continue NOT teaching, in which case Fall does not represent the loss of freedom.

This year Fall looks pretty promising.  Here is what a GingerWeaver Autumn looks like so far...

Xerox Gingers at the Pumpkin Patch

Not loving the slide with Aunt Mint

Grandma Steve and Grandpa MacGyver

Hi-Five to Ice Cream!

"Will this llama help keep the weeds down?"

Brad and Janet GingerWeaver

Aunt Columbia

Mini-Mummy Bites

Pizza Ghoulies

Grandpa "Goose" and Grandma Nature

IncrediGingers

Anyone want to go camping? Last chance...

Let me first start by saying that I am perfectly aware that I lead a charmed life. Ok. Now onto the post.

We love our house. It is the Brady Bunch Dream House. Maybe not as swanky or pink as what Barbie landed, but we have plenty of fake brick and faux-rock accented walls. Join us for s'mores around our avocado green, mosaic tiled, round fire pit which is fully loaded with two electric burners and a 1978 Susan B. Anthony for effect. Take that Barbie. What we DON'T love is that our house floods. Every. Time. It. Rains. Don't believe that "It never rains in Southern California" malarkey, either. I have the pictures to prove otherwise. You see, the guy we bought from (we'll refer to him as Douche) is well, a douche. He did a helluva job covering up every last little bit of evidence that would show signs of water damage/flooding. Oh yeah. I'm totally calling Mike Holmes.*

Anyway- after months of work by our amazing attorney, Uncle Esquire,  the fate of our home repairs lie within Douche's ridiculously large, terribly expensive but not terribly valuable, 5th wheel toy hauler. You know what I don't need in my East County driveway right after I've died my hair pink?  The only thing worse might be a Fox Racing tattoo.

But guess what?!  Wednesday is the day that we get rid of the Beast.  It's on Ebay with no reserve.  We want it gone.  And come Wednesday, I will once again be able to change The Dude's diaper in the morning without staring at a 40 foot reminder that life is not fair.  You can be a lowlife liar, who is fiscally irresponsible and still walk away with no real ramifications.  He wasn't sad to give us this thing.  He couldn't afford the insurance or registration anymore and it was about to get repo'd.  And that's when I stop to remember.  Karma's a bitch.  He may not have had to fork over the cash it will cost us to fix this house, but he's definitely paying the piper.   I have this awesome house and he has a pending bankruptcy, an ugly divorce, an estranged daughter, a failed business and a $500 hitch he doesn't need.  Am I happy?  No.  I'm not.  His misfortune doesn't lessen my burdens nor does it bring me joy or a feeling of justice.  But it does put things into perspective.

This really is a fantastic house. We can have killer parties here and The Dude gets to play in a huge backyard.  I have 10 different vegetables and fruits growing in my gorgeous raised beds.  The dogs have opportunities to catch bunnies and gophers (but that's another blog post altogether) and someday I will have a chicken coop.    I make lavender lemonade from the Meyer lemons in my backyard. Sometimes coyotes wake us up at 4 a.m. And yet, I'm about 15 miles from the ocean and 20 minutes from just about anywhere in San Diego. It is as perfect for us as anything could be. I'm not thrilled at the idea of ripping out my driveway and the amount of money it will cost to "fix" the problems correctly.  But it really isn't so bad, and on Wednesday it'll be even better.  Life is good.  After all, not everyone has a coin collection embedded in their masonry.

*Turns out Mike is pretty popular, and therefor rather busy.  There are also some filming regulations or something so they only film in Canada.  At least I tried to "Make it Right."