Peanut Butter on the Brain

For some reason I couldn’t get Peanut Butter Cookies off my brain this week.  I finally succumbed to the thought and baked a batch of PB cookies.  We needed a little something sweet for lunchbox treats this week anyway.  My girls have taken homemade lunches to school from kindergarten all the way through high school.  It is a rare occasion that they eat from the cafeteria.  I know cafeterias are reputed to be working at providing healthier lunches for kids, but mine always prefer mom’s sack lunch.  It’s always fun to have a “cute” or “comical” lunchbox to tote to school too.  School is out for summer next week in my neck of the woods.  Miss T has carried an old-fashioned, metal, Hello Kitty lunch box to school this year.  It could be placed in retirement in lieu of a cooler, cuter, bigger, brighter lunchbox next year, or her affinity for Hello Kitty might keep it in circulation.  She will be a senior so it will be interesting to see what she chooses for that last year of carrying her homemade lunches to school.

Ok, peanut butter cookies.  Maybe the easiest cookie to throw together.  I used extra crunchy peanut butter as I like that little crunch in the cookie.  They are crunchy, rich, and peanuty and only a few bites per cookie.  This does not guarantee against multiple trips to the cookie jar, but if you’re hankering for a bite of something sweet, these are perfect.  One night I wanted something extra indulgent, here is what I did.  I took two scoops of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla Bean ice cream, drizzled it with warmed Mrs. Richardson’s Butterscotch Caramel Topping and crumbled 2 PB cookies over the top.  Sheer pleasure at the combo of the cold ice cream, which is delicious alone, the warm caramel oozing with every bite, and the rich crispness of the cookie topping.  Give it a try!

Before I go just a bit about bees and Beep, our resident Roadrunner.  Beep is becoming so comfortable in our yard that our normal comings and goings as well as those of the dogs don’t seem to faze him anymore.  I’ve been as close as about 25 feet away and he just watches.  The dogs have long given up chasing him.  Yesterday he was lounging on the chairs in the back yard, preening himself, and making the funniest clacking noises with his beak.  I pulled up a rocker on the porch, with camera in hand and took one shot I will post below.  It is interesting how you can see the patches of blue and orange, a sort of peachy orange on the sides of his face. These are not feathers but patches of skin and not usually seen when catching a glimpse of a Roadrunner.  Thought you might admire our handsome Beep!

The bees are incredibly busy now.  I checked all 5 hives yesterday and was pleased with my findings.  Looks like honey production is beginning to take place and still lots of baby bees baking. They will continue to hatch and replace the older girls as summer progresses.  I got a peek at Queen Heidi, she is my shyest queen but she is doing a great job in her hive.  It’s my biggest with the most bees.  Maybe 25-30,000 bees in her hive. Mind boggling isn’t it?  In my newest hive, where Queen Anne resides, the bees in less than a week have added new comb, wax and secured the natural comb to the frames.  I think they like being country girls!

This Peanut Butter Cookie recipe is straight from the Joy of Cooking – 75th Anniversary Edition.  In lieu of the upcoming long holiday weekend, I’ll be taking a short break from writing to spend time with my family, party with some friends and hopefully do a little yard work.  Happy Memorial Day weekend to you, my readers.  Have a safe and fantastic holiday.  Thanks for stopping by……

Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened (5 1/3 tbsp)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 cup peanut butter, smooth or crunchy
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 375*.  Grease or line two cookie sheets.
Whisk flour and soda together, set aside.  Beat together butter and sugars until well blended.  Beat in egg, peanut butter and vanilla, mix well.  Stir in flour mixture until blended.
Shape into 1-inch balls and arrange 2″ apart on the cookie sheets. Press flat with a fork. Bake one sheet at a time, about 10-12 minutes.  Let stand briefly, then remove to racks to cool completely.

Setting Goals & Eating Carrots

In spin class at the gym on Monday the instructor challenged each of us to set a goal for the week and when she sees us again next Monday we’ll see who achieved their personal goal.  The two things I recognize about this challenge, 1-it gave each of us an opportunity to improve on a chosen goal, 2- it might compel us to return to class next week to boast on our accomplishment!

A few of the chosen goals were; only drink one diet coke a day, drink more water, come to the gym 5 days out of 7, etc…  I thought about my goal while the others shouted out theirs.  I already drink more than the required 8 glasses per day, I make it to the gym regularly and even teach a class on Fridays, I don’t drink diet soda and rarely drink soda at all.  Thinking, thinking, almost my turn….I had recently read an article reminding me that we should eat 5 cups of fruit and veggies every day.  This seems easy except that Miss T and her dad are both a tad picky about vegetables.  They have their “comfort zone” lists of veggies and in comparison to mine they are quite short.  I believe when your list of “likes” is short  it’s easy to get bored with eating veggies as you have too little variety.  After reading that article I’d thought, “I eat lots of fruit and veggies but, do I eat 5 cups a day?”.  I also figured I would simply incorporate more veggies into lunches or snacks, as I am usually on my own at those times.  As my turn came I decided to set that as my personal goal for the week.  I added, to fit cardio in at least three days out of the next seven.  I like my goal and know that it will be a piece of cake to achieve it.

That afternoon I stopped at the grocery and picked up some organic carrots to roast. Carrots are on my husbands list of “likes” so one out of two family members could enjoy them with me.  They were bright, colorful and of course, my favorite color, so I had to take a photo of them.  There is no “recipe” to accompany this post but I will tell you how I prepared them and maybe you will add more veggies to your plate this next week too.

In my efforts to meet my goal, last night I served green beans with dinner and ate a leafy green salad for lunch. I’ve also had cantaloupe, the best one yet this season, blueberries, bananas, an apple and tomatoes.  Now, let me say, apples are not in season but this apple came from Chile where it is apple season and it was a honey crisp, not bad for an apple in May.  Bananas don’t grow in Texas but are readily available in our stores.  Melons and blueberries do grown in Texas and both are favorites of mine.  Adoring hubby told me of a local farm stand on the other side of town he noticed late last week.  I plan on making a trip over to see what fresh, local veggies and fruits can be snapped up to help me meet my goal.  Now to head out for a brisk walk, that will meet 2 of the 3 days of cardio I planned for. If I were guessing I’ll be adding some cardio to the routine in my class this Friday.

Go on…get out there, take a walk, ride your bike around the block or throw the ball with your kids.  And, pile on the veggies and fruits – ’tis the season.

Enjoy!

Roasted Carrots

I scrubbed the carrots and trimmed the tops and ends.  Next I sliced them in half, tossed with olive oil, kosher salt and fresh ground pink peppercorns.  I placed them on a jelly roll pan and roasted with the convection feature at 325* for about 40 minutes.  They were sweet, slightly firm (not mushy!) and tasteeeeee!

Summer & American Potato Salad

Memorial Day is less than a week away and that means summer is upon us.  What comes to mind when you think of summer?  Sandy beaches, popsicles, picnics in the park, juicy peaches, sitting under a shady tree, cold watermelon, BBQ’s, pool parties, garden fresh tomatoes, cool mountain air, homemade ice cream, long days and evening star-gazing are a few of my summer pleasures.  Give a shout and enlighten me to your favorite summer joys or foods.

I’m adding a big bowl of potato salad to my list of summer pleasures.  Taking a place at the BBQ buffet, filling a plastic container, pulled from a cooler at the beach, spooned onto brightly colored plates and served poolside, potato salad is a summer staple.  There are as many recipes for potato salad as there are cooks making it.  I have several potato salad recipes, but today I’m showcasing American Potato Salad.  

Here is the situation with potato salad in my kitchen.  Adoring hubby will not eat hard-boiled eggs.  Miss T, LuLu and I relish them.  Dilemma here!  You will notice in the photo there aren’t any eggs in this bowl of potato salad.  I must have been in a “please others” mood and left them out for my hubby.  There are times when I put them in and he has to pick around and push aside the chunks of egg as he finds them. This is a basic, go with anything, very tasty potato salad for those times when you’re feeling very American!

Enjoy!

American Potato Salad

Ingredients:
2 pounds waxy potatoes ( I used golds)
1 celery rib, diced
3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
3/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tbsp. red wine vinegar
1 tbsp. coarse grain mustard or yellow mustard (I use coarse grind)
2 dill pickles, diced
Salt & pepper to taste

Boil potatoes in water until tender.  Drain and peel.  Cut into bite size pieces.  Add celery, eggs, pickles and toss.  Whisk together mayo, vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper and pour over salad.  Toss gently until potatoes are coated with dressing.  Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

City Bees

Check out the City Bees story under – Bees & Honey – My Bees Have Arrived – City Bees. Stay tuned for tomorrows scrumptious summer potato salad recipe!

Banana Chocolate Chip Bread

Today is hot, humid, cloudy, windy and every so often the sun peeks through the grey sky causing it to feel sweltering.  Blech!  My least favorite type of weather.  Here’s the good stuff, it is Friday, I baked Banana Chocolate Chip Bread!  A bit of baking time in the kitchen brought a smile to my face on this grey day.

I chose banana bread because I had 3 bananas speckled with brown, actually 2 of them were more than speckled.  The brown ones are the ones I believe make the best bread, as they are full of natural banana sugars and seem to add more flavor to the bread.  There was a bottle of buttermilk in the frig pleading to be used and I like to throw chocolate chips into my banana bread occasionally because it brings a smile to Miss T.  Chocolate chips in just about anything puts a smile on her sweet face. A large jar of honey sits on the counter and I was curious to see if it would enhance the loaf of bread.  All tasty ingredients by my standards and I think you’ll be pleased with the fragrant loaf when you pull it out of your oven.  It turned a beautiful golden brown and has a lovely split down the center, enough to see the moist bread peeking through.  The whole wheat flour, honey and walnuts give it a natural, earthy flavor, while the chocolate chips add some gooey sweetness.  It begs to be washed down with a cup of steamy coffee or a cold glass of milk.

Tomorrow adoring hubby and I will make our first solo bee removal.  I’m quite excited! Stay tuned for my account of our adventure, provided it is eventful. The other day I went with Mr. Floyd to remove bees in a water meter and when we opened it there were about 15 bees inside, not much happening in there, but I located the queen easily, captured her and we loaded her majesty, along with her entourage into a hive.  A fellow bee keeper was in need of a queen so we were happy to pass her along.  Hopefully the experience tomorrow will be worthy of a tale.

Enjoy!

Banana Chocolate Chip Bread

Ingredients:
2 large eggs
3/4 cup white sugar
3 ripe bananas
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. melted butter
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325*.  Butter a loaf pan with a small amount of melted butter and lightly dust with flour.  Using the bowl of a Kitchen Aid mixer beat the eggs with the sugar on medium high until thick and light, about 5 minutes.  Add mashed bananas, buttermilk, honey, oil, vanilla, walnuts, remaining butter and chips.  Mix.

Mix together flours, baking powder, soda and salt.  Add dry mixture to wet ingredients and beat until just combined.  Transfer batter to loaf pan and bake about 1 hour.  Bread is done when a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let bread sit for about 10 minutes; then turn bread out on a rack to finish cooling.

What A Nice Surprise

The Versatile Blogger Award

What a nice surprise to be handed the Versatile Blogger Award by Ryan at http://www.ryanbakes.com.  I’ve enjoyed her delightful blog for a while now and am honored that she crowned me with this award.  Check out her blog – I look forward to trying her recipe for Mexican Chocolate Pound Cake – it has all the good stuff like chocolate, cinnamon and powdered sugar.  I’m sure you’ll find something you want to try too.

Now, for a little lesson about bees.  Recently my adoring husband had a conversation with a neighbor who asked if we’d heard about the demise of bees as a consequence of cell phone use.  Neither of us had heard about this theory.  The neighbor said that a study done in Switzerland determined that placing cell phones inside hives affected the bees in a negative way.  I had to google this and see what all the buzz is about after I made the mistake of carrying my cell phone with me when I went to watch the girls late yesterday afternoon.   I wander out to the bee yard almost every day, late in the afternoon to see what’s going on around the hives.  My bees have never been aggressive to me while I’m on my stroll around the outside of the yard.  I was expecting an important call yesterday and put the phone in my pocket, not remembering the conversation with the neighbor.  As I stood several feet away from the yard, enjoying the girls coming and going, one very angry bee came right towards my face and as I turned to walk away my phone rang in my pocket.  Realizing that an angry bee was on the loose I continued to walk away from the bee yard and answered the phone.  She stung me, and another came and tried to sting me and yet another got tangled in my hair as I walked, more like scurried away from the area near the bee yard.  Anyone watching from afar surely got a good laugh out of it.  I escaped with only one sting on my cheek, which I will say is minimal and not too bad to look at. OH!, then I remembered the conversation about the Swiss study and I had to do a little research.

The researcher, Daniel Favre, determined that the bees recognize a ring about to take place, and are greatly affected while the ringing occurs as well as while the conversation takes place.  He determined that the bees make louder than usual buzzing noises during the call, which is a signal to the hive that danger is near.  The study found that the bees’ buzzing increases ten times when a cell phone is ringing or making a call.  I don’t know if I can buy the idea that cell phone transmission is causing the demise of our lovely honey bees but after yesterday’s experience I certainly believe that the cell phone is not a useful tool near or in the bee yard!  I haven’t carried my phone out to watch the girls previously and I certainly will not carry it with me in the future.  I conclude a better choice is a nice chilled glass of wine.  Cheers!

The bees are having a field day in the wildflower pasture surrounding their bee yard.  The entire pasture is a profusion of wildflowers.  There are masses of wildflowers in red, orange, yellow and many hues of purple.  Enjoy these bee photos and check back soon for a recipe that is sure to leave your mouth-watering.

Laughter=Good

I hope you will laugh with me over this one!  I was clearly perplexed with the semi-failure of the ginger snaps in my post It’s A Snap.  After posting the recipe, my mind kept going over the amount of flour I had listed and the amount I had used.  I just kept going back over it in my head until I finally deduced that the amount called for and the amount I added to the bowl were not the same!  Hahahahaha!!  The amount called for is 2 1/2 cups and I am 95% certain that I only added 1 1/2 cups of flour.  This would solve the mess of the runny dough and oh so flat cookies.  I may try my hand at these again with the proper amount of flour and see if they don’t turn out more like a snap instead of a wafer. Adoring hubby and Miss T ate them anyway, as I said they tasted great, so not a complete failure, but laughable nonetheless.  Here is a quote from Anna Fellows Johnston (1863-1931) that sums up my dilemma with the ginger snaps, “Remember, men need laughter sometimes more than food”.  The ginger snap snafu is a perfect fit for Ms. Fellows Johnston’s quirky quote.  If you wanted to learn something new today, Anna Fellows Johnston was an American author of children’s fiction, who wrote the popular “Little Colonel” series, which was the basis for the 1935 film starring Shirley Temple, The Little Colonel.  

Now that you are thoroughly educated, let’s move on to chocolate cake.  If I had a choice of laughter or this chocolate cake I might develop frown lines rather quickly.  This chocolate cake was a request by Miss T for eating at breakfast on her actual birthday – today.

She didn’t care what kind of cake, as long as it was chocolate and had cream cheese frosting.  We went to the grocery yesterday to get a few ingredients I was out of and she headed off in the wrong direction.  I questioned where she was headed and nearly died when she said she was going to look for a cake mix and a can of icing.  I don’t know this kid, willing to eat a cake mix for her birthday!  I won’t say I’ve never made cake from a box but on a birthday it is always made from scratch.  A special day deserves a special cake. She wandered off anyway and came back with a can of cream cheese icing!  “What in the world?”, I asked.  “I want cream cheese icing Mom”, she replied.  I straightened that idea out quickly and we headed for the dairy isle of the store.   Things have been a touch crazy around here the past couple of weeks, I suppose she was trying to make it easy on me. But really, cream cheese frosting in a can?  EEEE-gads, not happening!  I told her I thought I was capable of making chocolate cream cheese frosting and a big smile spread across her face.

The cake is moist, flavorful and possibly the simplest cake I’ve ever made, not in a box! Making the cream cheese frosting was, well, a piece of cake.  The incredible part of making this cake is that you dump all the ingredients in a bowl and mix.  No beating, and adding, and beating more.  The frosting chocolatey with a touch of cream cheese tang! Perfection, that I could sit and eat with a spoon – who needs a cake? Simple and delicious, and it brought a beautiful smile to my daughters beautiful seventeen year old face this morning as she gulped down the first piece on her way out the door.  She did stop to blow out candles and enjoy a serenade by her dad and me before heading off into her teenage world.  Ahhhhh, what a life!

Plan to keep this recipe in your recipe file as it is a winner.  Speaking of recipes and files, how do you store recipes that you just can’t live without?  In a box, a file, a pile, a book, how?  Just curious…

Enjoy!

Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking soda
2 eggs (farm fresh)
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 300* – yes 300*.  Lightly grease your pans of choice.  2- 9″ round cake pans, 9×13″ layer pan, or cupcake pans. Put all the ingredients into the mixing bowl and mix on medium to medium high with an electric mixer, until all ingredients are well combined.  Pour into greased pans and bake for 40 minutes- 2 pans, 1 hour- layer pan, or 20 minutes-cupcakes .  When a knife inserted in the center comes out clean the cake is done.  Allow cake to cool for about 10 minutes then remove to racks for complete cooling before frosting.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup unsalted butter
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder

Mix cream cheese and butter until creamy.
Add sugar one cup at a time and blend well after each addition.
Mix in cocoa powder.  

This makes plenty of icing for a 2 layer cake!

Road Food

New photo under Austin, Texas. Check it out!

It’s A Snap

Yikes, since we finished off that luscious cheesecake so quickly I needed,  yes I said, “needed”, to bake something sweet!  I decided on gingersnaps.  As I write, the first batch is in the oven and I’m going to tell you they don’t look too promising.  The recipe said form a dough, no dough formed.  It said to roll small balls and place them on the cookie sheets, then flatten with your fingers.  Not exactly how it worked.  I scooped spoons half-full of dough and scraped them onto the cookie sheets, no need to flatten, they did that on their own.  I’m a little baffled at the moment as this is not what I’d envisioned.  If, however, they come out golden brown and delicious then I’ll be a happy camper.

While I wait for the first batch of gingersnaps to come out of the oven I wanted to write some thoughts about the blogging world.  I’ve noticed that more people whom I’ve never met are reading my blog and I in turn am reading theirs.  It is time-consuming to read blogs, so limiting the number of them I read regularly is imperative.  I question how much of a bloggers post is read when it tells a story as opposed to simply posting a recipe?  I’ve noticed that I enjoy reading a story, a life lesson, a journey, a funny saga, or another’s take on our world as much as I like to read the accompanying recipe.  It would be impossible to recreate the many delicious recipes that come across the screen and keep up with my blog at the same time.  So, if there isn’t time to produce all the many wonderful recipes floating in the foodie blog world, why else do we read them?  I suspect it may be for entertainment, plain and simple.

Of course, some blogs don’t appeal to me, as I know The Orange Bee doesn’t appeal to every person who stumbles upon it.  What I find interesting is, in the literally hundreds of thousands of blogs, gazillions to be exact, that are out there it’s so easy to bypass one or another but be completely drawn to others.  Interaction between people, albeit most strangers, with the same interests, sense of humor, lifestyle, etc. have become a valued slice of my existence. I was slow in learning about blogs, as a matter of fact before I started mine I truly, didn’t know exactly what they were.  Now that I do, I will say the amount of reading material out there in the blog world is mind-boggling and only a small percentage of it appeals to me.  I’m curious to know your thoughts or ideas on blogs, reading or keeping up with them.  To what extent do you read  blogs, do you feel drawn to check in on certain bloggers, do you simply write your own blog, or only read them?  Just curious…oblige me if you will and give me your thoughts.

The verdict is in on the gingersnaps.  Failure, to a certain extent.  They look absolutely nothing like the cookies in the cookbook I used and didn’t make the dough as I expected. They should be called “Gingersnap Wafers”.  I’ve read and re-read the recipe to be sure I didn’t overlook or leave something out.  Oven temp-check, amounts correct-check, baking time-check, fresh ingredients-check.  I now have the third batch in the oven.  I decided to chill the dough to see if it would stiffen up a bit.  This is not called for in the recipe.  It seems to have firmed up to the extent I could scoop a little dough with a spoon and shape it into balls with my hands.  9 minutes until this batch is baked and I can’t wait to see how they fare.

The flavor is delicious, gingery with a hint of orange, a delightful combo, chewey in the center and lightly crisp on the edges.  I’m contemplating taking the entire first batch which are very thin and wafery and turning them into gingersnap crust or topping for something with peaches as the main ingredient.  It is a rainy, dark, gray, afternoon and I can’t think of anything better to have spent my time on than baking a batch of cookies, even if they are a flop.  Next I’ll move on to finding a solution for the snaps and some peaches.  You’ll have to check back for how that works out.  5 minutes and counting…….how will this last batch make out?

I’ve decided to go ahead and post the recipe for these cookies as they taste great.  Miss T even gave them a thumbs up.  You can see from my photo that they are flat as pancakes, well actually some pancakes are much thicker than these cookies.  I can’t put my finger on what went awry but for the sake of taste I’ll post the recipe.  Thunder roars and lightning flashes, rain pours and spatters my windows now, so I’ll go.  Try this recipe if you don’t mind flat cookies, that taste fine.  I doubt that I will make them again, but hey isn’t that what experimenting with new recipes is all about?  Oh and by the way, I am a happy camper, they are after all delightfully edible.

Enjoy!

Gingersnaps

2 1/2 cups self rising flour
pinch of salt
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. baking soda
9 tbsp. butter
1/4 cup dark corn syrup ( I used light)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp. grated orange rind

Preheat the oven to 325*.  Lightly grease cookie sheets.  Sift together the flour, salt, sugar, ginger and baking soda into a large bowl.  Heat the butter and corn syrup together in a saucepan over very low heat until the butter has melted.  Let cool slightly, then pour it onto the dry ingredients.  Add the egg and orange rind and mix thoroughly to form dough.  (this is where it gets tricky).  Chill the dough for about 30 minutes and then shape small pieces of dough into balls.  Place the balls on the cookie sheet and flatten them with your fingers (if the dough has been chilled this step is doable).  Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Cheese Please

Cheesecake, that is!  If you’ve followed my blog you already know this past weekend was a big time at The Orange Bee.  Miss T was celebrating her 17th birthday – a little early.  I am tickled that she requested cheesecake for her birthday dinner dessert.  It disappeared quickly, meaning no calorie laden cake staring me in the face all week-long.   It was creamy, tangy and sweet all at the same time with a crunchy, buttery graham cracker crust and brought “ooohhh’s and ahhhh’s from everyone who ate a slice.

Miss T enjoys her cheesecake plain.  No fruit, no toppings, no extra flavors or textures to mask that luscious creaminess.  My older daughter LuLu said she thought some cherry pie filling was in order as she had been “craving that stuff”.  Not sure why because I’ve never served that pie filling on cheesecakes nor filled a pie with it.  I mean, who opens a can of pie filling, pours it in a crust and calls it a pie?  No offense if that’s your thing but it’s not my style.  I contemplated making fresh strawberry sauce for the cake but decided since time was running short, to buy a can of cherry pie filling, if only to satisfy LuLu. Turns out all the folks except the birthday girl herself, wanted cherry topping.  The entire meal was a great success but the cheesecake was the star on the menu.

I’ve owned a Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese Cookbook by Kraft for a very long time. I pulled it out knowing that a plain, delicious cheesecake awaited me on page 150.  It’s called Northwest Cheesecake Supreme.  I like any kind of cheesecake and have tried my hand at a few in this book but this is the one I always come back to when I’m short on time and want a plain, basic cake.  I would have liked to prepare the cake the day before our gathering, let it chill overnight for a melding of flavors, but time didn’t allow, so I threw it together on the morning of, chilled it for about 8 hours and it was perfect.

To any mothers reading my blog today I am hopeful your Mother’s Day was celebrated in just your fashion.  Mine was exceptional, both of my girls here for hugs and kisses, my Mother came for lunch, the guys did all the clean up after lunch, and to complete the afternoon, the Mavericks swept the L.A. Lakers.  Sadly all the cheesecake had disappeared and adoring hubby and I savored bowls of Blue Bell Vanilla Bean ice cream while we cheered at the amazing game being played out before our very eyes!

The weather is getting hotter again this week, the winds are back, blowing like there is no tomorrow.  I took advantage of today being promised as the nicest day this week and checked on all my bees.  I’m happy to announce that all four hives are looking healthy, full of bees working hard on honey production, while my queens stay busy laying eggs.  I shot some captivating photos of bees engaged in removing some drops of honey from a frame.  I’ll put them up shortly under the Bees & Honey page, Bee School 101, Honey Drop.

Enjoy!

Northwest Cheesecake Supreme

Ingredients:
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons butter, melted
4-8oz packages  Philadelphia Brand cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 can cherry pie filling
Combine crumbs, sugar and butter and press into the bottom of a 9″ spring-form pan.  Bake at 325* for 10 minutes.

Combine cream cheese, sugar and flour, mixing at medium speed until well blended.  Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Blend in sour cream and vanilla; pour over crust.  Bake at 450* for 10 minutes.  Reduce oven temperature to 250*; continue baking 1 hour.  Loosen cake from rim of pan;cool before removing rim of pan.  Chill.  Top with pie filling just before serving; or enjoy it plain as Miss T does, you won’t be sorry.
Cheese Cake