Lemony Cheesecake With Chocolate Ganache And Raspberry Sauce

Today is my Mother's birthday, so in honor of her I have made a cheesecake. If the batter is any indication of how good the cake will be, this is going to be excellent. I have it baking even as I type this.

So here is how I made it:

Lemony Cheesecake With Chocolate Ganache and Raspberry Sauce

Ingredients:

Filling
3 ½ 8oz. packages of Philadelphia Cream Cheese®
½ cup plus 2 T. granulated sugar
4 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
3 T. all-purpose flour
1 t. ± vanilla extract
4 packets True Lemon® crystallized lemon

Crust
4 cups graham cracker crumbs crushed
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup unsalted butter melted

Raspberry Sauce
1 cup sugar
2 cups fresh raspberries
¼ cup water
3 T cornstarch
¼ t. salt
1 T unsalted butter

Chocolate Ganache
2 cups heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
24 ounces dark chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350° F

For the crust:
Combine the graham cracker crumbs and the sugar. Add the melted butter and mix thoroughly. Pour crumb mixture into a 10" springform pan and firmly pack the mixture over the bottom and up the sides of the pan forming a crust. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove and cool.

For the filling:
Beat cream cheese with an electric mixer at medium speed until fluffy, then beat in sugar. Add whole eggs and yolks, 1 at a time, beating well at low speed and scraping down bowl after each addition. Add the crystallized lemon and mix well. Beat in flour and vanilla until just combined.

Pour the mixture into the crust (which should still be in the springform pan!)

Wrap the sides and bottom of the pan with aluminum foil. Place the springform pan into a larger pan in the oven (like the drip pan) and fill the larger pan with water. (Of course you don't want to fill it so full that it overflows into the cake! The aluminum foil is to help keep the water out of the springform pan.) Bake until the sides of the cake are firm about 2 ½ inches in. Turn off the oven and allow it to cool.

Run a thin knife around edge of cake to loosen, then cool completely in pan on a rack. (Cake will continue to set as it cools.) Serve at room temperature or chilled.


For the Raspberry Sauce:
Combine sugar, salt, and berries in a sauce pan. Mix the water and the cornstarch together to make a slurry and add to the sauce pan. Over medium-low heat stir the mixture constantly until the sauce thickens. Stir in the butter while the sauce is still warm.

For the Ganache:
In a heavy pan heat whipping cream, butter and powdered sugar to a boil while whisking constantly. Place chips in a large stainless steel bowl, add hot cream mixture and let set for 5 minutes. Whisk together until smooth. Let cool until it reaches spreading consistency.

UPDATE:
The cake is just about done baking. I will do my best to add some photos of the cake and a finished product report a little bit later tonight!

LATER UPDATE:
Sorry. No pictures. Candles kind of messed up the aesthetic anyway. The ganache and the raspberry sauce were good, but I think I need to find a better way to do the sauce so that it doesn't thicken quite so much. Perhaps less cornstarch. I could have used fewer graham crackers for the crust too. All told I liked the cheesecake best without anything on it. It had a nice lemony flavor - which is good because that is what I was going for! It was a pretty big hit too. It is ¾ gone!

Final Analysis On the Chicken and Dumplings

Everything worked as advertised. I did end up adding about 6-8 cups of water to dilute the broth after I had removed the chicken from the bones and put the meat back in the pot. I think that after I took the broth out (I took out 4 cups) to make the dumplings I had about 2 cups left over. I added about 1 cup back to the pot and froze the rest.

My dinner guests seemed to enjoy them just fine.

Hope they work well for you too.

Chicken And Dumplings Going Public

Tonight I am starting the process for making my chicken and dumplings again. I have been following the recipe that I posted earlier just to make sure that I got it right.

So far so good. All of the measurements for the preparation of the chicken were spot on. (By the way; I did measure the amount of water that I needed for my stock pot. I used ½ gallon of water to cover the chicken.)

The chicken and dumplings are for a meal to be shared with the people from my worship band. Even though our church has officially shut down, we have decided to continue to practice together and perhaps make our gatherings' activities a bit more diversified. We have talked about having a devotional talk from the Scriptures and also making sure that we pray.

Tonight at Conspiracy of Kindness, another blog that I contribute to, I wrote the following:

Ever since the demise of StillWaters I have been wondering exactly what constitutes having church. What are the key elements? What must be present to have had church, and which elements are optional?

I think that it is an interesting question. How much of what we do on Sunday mornings across the world is required for "church" to happen? Are we really achieving church on Sunday mornings?

If you are interested please feel free to check out the post called, "What Exactly Constitutes 'Church' Anyway?" I do hope that there will be some feedback on the post. My thoughts on the subject are in their early stages. I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for reading!

Chicken And Dumplins

It has been a snowy day here in lovely China Grove. It started about 1:00 this afternoon and as far as I know it is still at it. The only problem is that it has been above 32° all day. So, instead of having about 8 inches of snow we have maybe 2 inches. The fun will come when we finally dip below freezing tonight. All of that wetness on the roads will want to freeze. Should be interesting heading to church tomorrow morning.

So with our church only having 3 remaining Sundays, I needed to plan to take something to our Sunday evening gathering. I thought about making a pound cake, but I only had one full stick of butter. That would have meant driving to the grocery store, and I vetoed that idea.

What this weather called for was comfort food. And what greater comfort food is there than chicken and dumplings? And what is better than wanting to prepare something that you already have all of the ingredients for? So chicken and dumplings won out.

However, I do wish that I had gone on and gotten the butter and made the cake now. I am really starting to get cabin fever! I haven't seen another human face to face all day. On top of that, I just got an email from the pastor saying that we are going to have pizza at tomorrow night's gathering. <Sigh> Oh well!

Since I don't have the heart to torment my good friend G who reads this blog regularly, and since I can't think of a good way to ship him a container of homemade chicken and dumplings, I have decided to tell you how to make them.

I got the foundation of this recipe from my Grandmother before she passed away. But like a lot of good, Southern recipes most of the measures were pretty general. Unfortunately, I don't think that I will be able to do much better here, but I have a pretty good idea of what I did.

Grandma's Chicken & Dumplings

Ingredients

1 Chicken (Cut up. Leave the skin on.)
2 Bay leaves
1 T Italian Seasoning (Usually contains oregano, rosemary, thyme, basil)
1 clove garlic cut in two
1 t dehydrated onion (You could use fresh. I was feeling lazy. Use about ¼ medium onion finely diced.)
5 black pepper corns
Salt to taste (I started with 1½ t, but I ended up adding about 3 t total)
2 c plain white flour

Method

1) Put the chicken in a stock pot. Cover with water. Add the bay leaves, Italian seasoning, garlic, onion, pepper corns, and salt. Cook on medium heat until the chicken comes off the bone easily.

2) Remove the chicken from the stock. Remove the bay leaves. Remove skin from chicken and remove the chicken from the bone. Tear the meat into bite sized pieces and return to the stock. Let it cook until the stock has a nice, light golden color. Make sure that the broth is adequately seasoned. Remove about 3 cups of stock from the pot and set aside.

3) Take ½ c of the flour and mix by hand it in a bowl with just enough of the stock to make it stick together in a ball. Use as few strokes as possible. Overworking it will make the dough tough. Sprinkle flour on your work area and turn the dough ball out onto the flour. Sprinkle flour on the dough and roll out as thin as you possibly can. The thinner the better. Cut the dough into 1 inch squares.

4) Turn up the heat under the stock pot until it is gently boiling. Slowly add the dumplings, gently stirring them into the boiling stock.

5) Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you have used all of the flour. Return any remaining stock to the pot. Reduce the heat to the lowest setting and cook. If you have a crock pot put them in there on the lowest setting.

You could probably eat them within 30 minutes if you just can't wait, but chicken and dumplings get better as they cook. The longer that you can give them the better. Keep an eye on the moisture level and add water as needed. I usually prepare them the day before I plan to eat them.

I hope that this recipe works out OK for you. Chicken and dumplings is one of those things that takes a little practice. If it doesn't go just perfect the first time, don't give up. Even when they aren't the best, they are still pretty good! Thanks for reading.

UPDATE:
I tasted them at about 1 hour, and I frankly couldn't imagine them tasting any better. Hope yours turn out well!

TIP:
Chicken and Dumplings don't really reheat well in the microwave. It changes the taste. They do much better if you slowly warm them back up on the stove top (just be careful to keep them from scorching) or in the oven.

Greens A' Cookin'

Tonight I have been cooking a pot of greens. I didn't get my greens on New Years' Day. Instead we had cabbage. I reckon it will work as well as the greens, but I still missed the greens.

I have been sampling them as the night has worn on. They are pretty good. I bought a pound of turnip greens and a pound of mustard greens. They smelled so good when I was cutting them up that I had to try them. I was surprised. They taste pretty good raw too. Might end up in a wintry salad some day. It had an almost arugula flavor to it. With a lemon vinaigrette? Hmmm..... But I digress.

If you have never cooked greens before you would be amazed by how much they cook down. I knew that they would reduce as they cooked, but I never would have dreamed that a half a pot would render down to less than ¼. I am pretty sure what I'm having for supper tomorrow: greens, corn bread, baked sweet potato and some black-eyed peas. Mmmmm. I don't guess it sounds (or gets for that matter) any more Southern than that.

Think it sounds gross? That's alright - just leaves more for me!

Easy Shepherd's Pie

The shepherd's pie turned out so well last night that I thought I'd share the recipe. This is not haute cuisine by any stretch of the imagination - just good, old fashioned comfort food. And it's easy too, which counts for something.

Jonathan's Shepherd's Pie

Ingredients

2/3 lb ground beef
1/2 c chopped onion
3 T Lea & Perrins ® Worcestershire Sauce
1 can Veg-All ® mixed vegetables
1 c Full-bodied red wine (I used a Yellow-Tail ® Cabernet Sauvignon, but a Merlot would do nicely too.)
1 can Campbell's ® Cream of Mushroom Soup
Salt to taste
3 c Idaho Spuds® prepared according to the directions (dry measure)
3 T Duke's ® Mayonnaise

Procedure

Preheat the oven to 350° F. In a skillet, brown the hamburger and onion. Drain off any excess grease. Add the Worcestershire sauce, the wine, and the mixed vegetables with the juice. Let the liquid cook down a bit. Add the soup and mix well. Salt to your taste. Let it simmer a little bit. Pour into a deep baking dish. Prepare the potatoes according to the directions, add the mayonnaise and mix well. Top the hamburger mixture with the potatoes and bake for 1 hour. If the potatoes aren't golden brown at the end of the hour turn on the broiler and let it brown for a couple minutes. (But keep a close eye on them - they will brown quickly under the broiler!) That's all there is to it.

Serves 4-6 (depending on appetite)

Of course you can substitute freshly cooked vegetables (carrots, green beans, peas, potatoes, celery), fresh mashed potatoes, and brands other than the ones mentioned in this recipe. I expect that fresh would make a difference in the taste, but for the time and energy involved in preparing this dish I think it tastes pretty darn good.

I would avoid substituting a salad dressing like Miracle Whip ® if (heaven help you) you can't get Duke's ® mayonnaise where you live. Hellmann's ® would be a much better substitute. I don't think that French's ® Worcestershire Sauce would be a good substitution either. It tastes completely different than the Lea & Perrin's ® version. You could also leave out the wine, but you will end up with a completely different taste.

I hope you enjoy it. It passed the 6-year-old niece test! If you try it, let me know how it goes with your family.

Updated March 27, 2008:
I have modified the recipe based on my experience with it. I have found that it works MUCH better to put the wine in before the soup and let the liquid cook down a little bit. It will shorten the preparation time considerably and make it a lot less messy.

Feed Me, Seymore, Feed Me

I am so hungry! And I can't do anything about it!

Well, I guess I could, but it will ruin my supper if I do.

Tonight we feast! Hahahahahahahaha!

Today is the annual (well, we're 2 for 2 anyway) Eller reunion at St. Matthew's Lutheran Church. We will be indulging in the gastronomic delights of the traditional Southern covered dish dinner. Mmmmmmm. I can hardly wait! Comfort food at its finest, served buffet style. I'll try to taunt you later with pictures.

I didn't make anything too outrageous to bring this time - just deviled eggs. Hey, what can I say? All of the positives weighed in to make it the no-brainer choice. Inexpensive, relatively easy, and tasty.

I spent a good bit of time in the kitchen yesterday. It all started 3 days ago. I was going through the cupboards and found a bag of beans for a Cajun 15 Bean Soup. So I put them out and started soaking them. I also took some shrimp out of the freezer to thaw. This was going to be good. I was thinking a shrimp etouffee would be nice.

Well, I have never made etouffee before. I've never eaten it before. I've never been to N'walins. Heck, I haven't even been to Lousianna before. So I started out at a decided disadvantage. That's never stopped me before - at least not when it comes to food.

One thing that I didn't know was when to add the shrimp to my stew. So I Googled it. I found a really tasty looking recipe for Shrimp Etouffee. It turns out that the website is a blog dedicated to New Orleans food and culture. I have linked to the blog in the Good Reading section. I'm guessing from a couple things that I have read there that me and the writer there probably wouldn't see eye to eye politically, but it is an interesting blog, and I don't mind making a friendship over food (we'll just stay away from politics should we ever meet!)

Anyway, I took his recipe and fiddled here and there. I made the shrimp stock. It smelled heavenly. Then I poured it into my beans and let them cook. I added a box of wild and white rice to the beans and let it cook. Then I went back and looked at the recipe. I realized that there were a few items on the list that I didn't have so I ran to the grocery store. When I got back, the cooking began in earnest. I was chopping, sauteing, and generally sweating in my steaming kitchen. I made a roux for the first time. Very cool. I'll have to try that with some other things. When it was all said and done my roux had turned into a beautiful, spicy sauce (it looked just like the picture on his recipe.) This was also added to the beans. After an all night turn in the crock pot plus a couple of extra hours I tested it out.

SON!!!!

I haven't even added the more delicate parts (shrimp, green onions, parsley) of the recipe yet and I know without a doubt that this is going in the official cookbook of my favorite recipes.

So, I really don't know what to call it. See, I know they have gumbo there and I know they have etouffee, but I really don't know the difference. Ask and ye shall receive... Here with all the authority of Ask Yahoo is the answer. There you go. It looks like it still can be classified as an etouffee. Thus, my version will be called J-touffee!

I can't wait to finish it! You should be so lucky! Oh yeah!

Beg and grovel and I may write out the recipe for you!