Did you ever have one of those moments when you're staring at the interior in your refrigerator and random thoughts pop up, like:
* How the hell did I end up with three + a half + ANOTHER half blocks of cream cheese? And a tub of mascarpone?
* Why in God's Little Green Polluted Earth did I buy a GALLON of strawberries from a local fruit stand when I still had half a quart of bitter organic ones from the Asheville farmer's market? (oh, oh...I know the answer to this one. It's because they were $4.99 a quart and the gallon tub was $14.99. So I got a quart free!)
* Sandy's hens have really been been putting out lately (which is code for 3 dozen fresh eggs, not for slutty chickens. Get your mind out of the gutter)
* God, when DID I buy that Noosa raspberry yogurt?
And last, but not least:
* What am I going to do with the rest of that expensive XO sauce after using 1 teaspoon of oily dried fish and shrimp?
And there you have the seed of my cheesecake recipe...which actually didn't start out a cheesecake recipe. No, it started out as a memory of a cold strawberry pie I had in 1978 when working at Westinghouse, back when the polar ice caps were still ice caps and strawberries were small and tasted like strawberries. One of the wives sent in a strawberry pie and I begged for the recipe. It was simple: 2 quarts of sliced fresh strawberries, 2 cans of condensed sweetened milk and juice from 2 lemons. Mix and pour into a baked pie shell. I don't know how, but that filling thickened and slices could be cut.
So that's how things started out. I cut the recipe in half but had to use lime juice and then decided to add the two halves of cream cheese because the recipe reminded me of Richard's Key Lime Dip. Then I realized I didn't have enough to share with the library, so I added a full 8 oz cream cheese, more bitter strawberries, and some white sugar. Then I saw the bottle of Cointreau that's been sitting on the counter for the past 2 months because I'm too lazy to put it away so I added a healthy splash of that. Then I thought it tasted too sweet so I added that tub of Noosa yogurt. Then it was too watery. So I beat up another 8 oz cream cheese and more sugar and stuck it all in refrigerator, hoping Kelvin's scale of absolute zero temperature would help this firm up.
It didn't.
So today I added yet ANOTHER tub of cream cheese, more sugar, more strawberries and 4 eggs yolks, mixed up a crust with some boring graham crackers and am now waiting for the sucker to bake.
So YOU figure out the recipe. I'm gonna have a drink with an indeterminate amount of alcohol in it.
* How the hell did I end up with three + a half + ANOTHER half blocks of cream cheese? And a tub of mascarpone?
* Why in God's Little Green Polluted Earth did I buy a GALLON of strawberries from a local fruit stand when I still had half a quart of bitter organic ones from the Asheville farmer's market? (oh, oh...I know the answer to this one. It's because they were $4.99 a quart and the gallon tub was $14.99. So I got a quart free!)
* Sandy's hens have really been been putting out lately (which is code for 3 dozen fresh eggs, not for slutty chickens. Get your mind out of the gutter)
* God, when DID I buy that Noosa raspberry yogurt?
And last, but not least:
* What am I going to do with the rest of that expensive XO sauce after using 1 teaspoon of oily dried fish and shrimp?
And there you have the seed of my cheesecake recipe...which actually didn't start out a cheesecake recipe. No, it started out as a memory of a cold strawberry pie I had in 1978 when working at Westinghouse, back when the polar ice caps were still ice caps and strawberries were small and tasted like strawberries. One of the wives sent in a strawberry pie and I begged for the recipe. It was simple: 2 quarts of sliced fresh strawberries, 2 cans of condensed sweetened milk and juice from 2 lemons. Mix and pour into a baked pie shell. I don't know how, but that filling thickened and slices could be cut.
So that's how things started out. I cut the recipe in half but had to use lime juice and then decided to add the two halves of cream cheese because the recipe reminded me of Richard's Key Lime Dip. Then I realized I didn't have enough to share with the library, so I added a full 8 oz cream cheese, more bitter strawberries, and some white sugar. Then I saw the bottle of Cointreau that's been sitting on the counter for the past 2 months because I'm too lazy to put it away so I added a healthy splash of that. Then I thought it tasted too sweet so I added that tub of Noosa yogurt. Then it was too watery. So I beat up another 8 oz cream cheese and more sugar and stuck it all in refrigerator, hoping Kelvin's scale of absolute zero temperature would help this firm up.
It didn't.
So today I added yet ANOTHER tub of cream cheese, more sugar, more strawberries and 4 eggs yolks, mixed up a crust with some boring graham crackers and am now waiting for the sucker to bake.
So YOU figure out the recipe. I'm gonna have a drink with an indeterminate amount of alcohol in it.