World’s Best Cheesecake (also not an exaggeration)

My last blog entry was about the world’s best meatballs. I thought it only fitting that I follow that up with a recipe for the world’s best cheesecake. This is a recipe I got from a former neighbor of mine and former Minnesota Secretary of State and current District 16B Minnesota State Representative Mary Kiffmeyer. When I originally got this recipe from her, probably about 20 years ago now, I thought it was her own personal recipe. It was only after I misplaced the recipe and asked her to resend me a copy, that I realized the recipe is actually a Better Homes and Gardens recipe from 1968.

This cheesecake truly is so decadent and rich and delicious, due in no small part, I am sure, to the five, yes that’s right FIVE packages of cream cheese. If you are a cheesecake lover, this is the recipe for you.

Note, Mary had crossed out the lemon in both the crust and the filling in the copy of the recipe she sent to me, but I included it. I thought it was a nice touch to have that zing that the lemon added.

I bottled my chocolate sauce. It heats up nicely!

 

In terms of topping, in the past I have offered everything from warm chocolate and caramel sauce to fresh berries (strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries were favorites). This time I made a homemade chocolate sauce that could be heated up and poured over the top. It was a tasty combination.

Cheesecake Supreme

Crust:
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel (optional)
½ cup butter
1 slightly beaten egg yolk
¼ teaspoon vanilla

Filling:
5 8-ounce packages of cream cheese
¼ teaspoon vanilla
¾ teaspoon grated lemon peel (optional)
1 ¾ cups sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
4 or 5 eggs (1 cup)
2 egg yolks
¼ cup whipping cream

Make Crust: Combine first three ingredients. Cut in butter till mixture is crumbly. Add egg yolk and vanilla. Blend thoroughly. Pat 1/3 of dough on bottom of 9-inch spring-form pan (sides removed). Bake in hot oven (350⁰) about 8 minutes or till golden; cool. Attach sides to bottom, butter, and pat remaining dough on sides to height of 1 ¾ inches.

Make Filling: Let cream cheese stand at room temperature to soften (1 to 1 ½ hours). Beat creamy. Add vanilla and lemon peel. Mix next three ingredients, gradually blend into cheese. Add eggs and egg yolks one at a time, beating after each just to blend. Gently stir in whipping cream.

Turn into crust-lined pan. Bake at 450⁰ for 12 minutes; reduce heat to 300⁰and continue baking for 55 minutes. Remove from oven; cool. Loosen sides with spatula after ½ hour. Remove sides at end of one hour. Allow to cool two hours longer.

World’s Best Swedish Meatballs

The whole purpose of this blog was to make all the family recipes passed down from my mom and grandmas with the intention of working my way through every recipe in my mom’s recipe box. However, I have been making a lot of non-family recipes recently and kind of got off track. Today’s recipe is the huge exception to the rule. You couldn’t pick out a recipe that is any closer to my family and nearer to dearer to our hearts than this one. This is my Grandma Laila’s and my mom’s Swedish meatball recipe. These truly are the best meatballs I have ever had in my life, and I’ve had a lot of meatballs. So, when I call them the world’s best Swedish meatballs, it is not hyperbole. I truly think they are the best Swedish meatballs ever. Heck, I think these are the best meatballs period, Swedish or otherwise!

The secret is the combination of meat. This is also the tricky part. The ground hamburger pork ratio has to be two-to-one. More importantly, is has to be ground together four times. The final meat product should be something resembling mush. However, getting a butcher to grind the meat for you might be tricky. I tried a local grocery store first and they told me to come back really early in the morning, like 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. to speak to the butcher about my special request. I don’t know about you, but I’m usually getting ready for work around that time and can’t be bothered to squeeze in a visit to my local grocery store too. The butcher at the next grocery store I called told me they wouldn’t grind together two different meats for liability reasons. The next store told me basically the same thing the first store did—come back early in the morning when the butcher was there and run my request by him. Note, I only tried the meat departments at local grocery stores and not local meat markets. I think I would have had better luck with a local meat market, but at this point. I thought “I will just grind the meat myself.” So I purchased a small meat grinder for about $25.

Unfortunately the grinder really wasn’t the greatest. It got good ratings online, but was painfully slow at grinding my meat. I spent way too much time just trying to get a small amount of meat combined and considering I needed the meet to be ground together four times, I knew this grinder was not going to meet my needs (or would that be “meat” my needs).

It was then a light bulb went off over my head. Why not try the larger of my two Ninjas to blend the two meats? Let me tell you, it worked like a charm. The meat was mushy and beautiful/disgusting just like it was supposed to be.

Ninja Blender

 

Mom’s Swedish Meatballs

Recipe makes 10 dozen (120 meatballs)

4 pounds ground beef
2 pounds ground pork
6 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
6 tbsp. (or 1/3 cup) flour
1 tsp. allspice
4 slices of toast crushed or 1 cup breadcrumbs
¾ tsp. nutmeg
4 eggs
1 cup half and half (or ¾ cup whipping cream with ¼ cup milk)
1 ½ packages Lipton Dried Onion Soup Mix (heaping 1/3 cup)

Contadina Traditional Unseasoned Bread Crumbs

Lipton Onion Soup Mix

Mix all these ingredients together. The best way to do this is to get in there with your bare hands and mix it, just grinding your hands through all the ingredients until everything is well blended. It won’t be pretty and if raw meat makes you gag a little, as it does me, you might have to hold your breath while you’re doing it, but the result will be a well-blended meat mixture.

I used a medium cookie dough scoop to get the same portion of meat for each meatball and then gave each scoop a little roll in between both of my hands to make it nice and round (although you can tell from my photos, I didn’t put too much effort into making them round).

Next, brown each meatball in a fry pan on the stove top. Just turn the stovetop on medium and turn each meatball frequently to see how the browning process is coming along.

Then, place all your meatballs in a roasting pan or Corning dishes with covers, as I did. Take a soup can of beef consommé and pour over the meatball. Then, fill the soup can with water and pour that over as well. Depending on the size of the dish you are going to bake it in, you might need to fill the soup can with a second can of water to pour over the meatballs, as well. You want the meatballs to be almost covered.

Campbell's Beef Consommé

Then, cover your bake ware and bake in the oven at 300 degrees for 3 to 4 hours.

I personally only made a half recipe (60 meatballs). Any meatballs you won’t be able to eat right away you can freeze in their consommé mixture. They heat up great later in the oven or a crock pot.

I made some delightful whipped potatoes and glazed carrots that I got off the Taste of Home site to go along with the meal. I am not sure what the difference is between whipped and mashed potatoes, but I call these whipped, because I had cut the potatoes into really small, thin pieces for boiling and they got cooked very well. When I went to mash them, I worried I added too much liquid (I only added a little bit of butter, heavy cream, and sour cream) and they were going to be runny, because the potatoes were almost overcooked, but they ended up coming together quite well, almost pureed.

I’ve heard others say mashed potatoes are when you use a potato or meat masher or a fork to blend your butter or cream or other ingredients into your boiled potatoes, whereas whipping them involves using a mixer to blend your ingredients. I didn’t use a mixer, but I might as well have for how creamy and smooth my potatoes turned out.

So far, these meatballs have been my favorite recipe to make. I was reminded of one year when my mom and I made multiple recipes—I can’t remember any more if it was six recipes we made or sixty pounds of meat—the number six being in there is the part I remember—regardless, it would have been somewhere in the neighborhood of 720-1,200 meatballs we made. Can you imagine? Those are restaurant quantities!

We used to freeze them in batches of two to three dozen and then bring them to all the family holiday gatherings, where they were de rigueur. Family and friends expected and looked forward to them and would have been hugely disappointed if they weren’t on the holiday menu each year.

Anyhow, it took us the entire day to make that many, and I remember, for the longest time afterwards, never wanting to go near a meatball recipe again. However, perhaps it was that practice that made perfect and ensured this dish would turn out so well, now that I've finally got around to making it again.

I really thought of my mom, as I made these. I felt as if she was right there in the kitchen with me, encouraging me. She loved the holidays so much and was always so excited every year to make all the traditional meals. I miss her so much.

Pumpkin Seed Toffee

My boss said there's a saying that every good recipe starts with the words: "Take a stick of butter..." Isn't that that truth!

The same evening that I made Cleta Bailey's Toffee Squares, I also decided to try this recipe for Pumpkin Seed Toffee that I found on the Taste of Home website.

This required that I go out and buy a candy thermometer.

There are folks who say you can tell when a liquid has gotten to the hard-crack stage—something about dropping some of the liquid into cold water, and it will form hard threads. However, I personally thought using a candy thermometer seemed more fool proof.

I will say it seemed like it took FOREVER for that thermometer to hit 300° i.e. the hard-crack stage, but I can be a very impatient person, especially when standing over a liquid that requires constant stirring/whisking. I probably pushed it a little too. I think my gooey delight was really only at 298°, when I decided it was done! (As my former teacher Colonel Woods used to say, "It's close enough for government work," and that is often how I approach cooking. I follow the directions just not always to a tee.)

Maybe that is why my toffee was a wee bit chewy, in my opinion. It was very tasty, in spite of that, though. Also, pumpkin seeds are a good source of Protein, Magnesium, and Zinc—so I would consider this a healthy snack, in spite of the 2+ cups of butter also called for in the recipe. :-)

Toffee Squares

I haven't posted for awhile. I've still been cooking and baking up a storm. I just haven't taken the time to write about it.

At work, we do an auction every year where the proceeds go to a charitable organization Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless. One of the things my unit offers to be auctioned off is two dozen cookies, once a month, for a year. Everyone is my unit takes turns making the monthly cookies. This month was my turn again. Instead of cookies, though, I made bars from this recipe I got from the Pioneer Woman Cooks. Have I mentioned I love her?

The recipe was called Cleta Bailey's Toffee Squares. I guess I must have cut my bars small, because the recipe made more than the two dozen I needed for my auction obligation, so I shared the extras with my co-workers. They were a big hit.

One thing I will say is that personally I'm not a huge fan of pecans. I only like them in certain items, such as in delectably delicious southern pralines. Actually, until recently, I didn't think I even liked pralines, but I traveled with my cousins to Savannah, Georgia, and, well, when in Rome. I decided to give the praline a try. Oh my. It was delicious! The ones I tried were from Savannah's Candy Kitchen. No, they are not paying me to advertise their confections. Their pralines are just that good.

But all that aside, I'm still not a huge fan of pecans, for the most part. However, I decided to stay true to the recipe and use pecans. That said, I think the recipes would be just as delicious with peanuts. I'll let you know when I try it!

Tomato Soup

Tomato Soup

Tomato soup. Is there anything more warm and satisfying on a chilly autumn evening? I was craving it and haven't found a recipe from my mom in her recipe box, so I used this recipe I found in a Taste of Home magazine.

Pepperidge Farm Goldfish "Babies" Baked Cheddar

I am a sucker for just about anything from Taste of Home. I love how they include color photos of all their recipes in their cookbooks and magazines and on their website. Any cookbook or cooking magazine that doesn't do that is going to get a big thumbs down from me.

Speaking of photos and photography, mine aren't the best, I realize. The key to good photos, in my humble opinion, is natural light. That is something I have virtually none of in my cave, er, I mean apartment. It's not that my place is completely windowless (I do have two windows) but the windows I do have I keep the shades drawn on 99% of the time. I just have too many neighbors in close quarters to do otherwise. I've noticed how my neighbors who ignore this rule and keep their blinds open are living in a fishbowl—especially at night, when the inside lights come on. You have a window into their worlds, because you can peer into their places and see their artwork, their furniture, their cat, what television shows they are watching. I notice this not because I'm a Peeping Tom, but because I frequently have to take my dog out for potty breaks, and I naturally look at my apartment and other houses and buildings in my neighborhood as I pass by. I've decided I would rather not have my neighbors see the granny underwear I wear to bed or the brand of cold cream that I use.

But I digress. I was talking about photography and how difficult it is to get decent pictures in non-decent light. That and decent dinnerware/cookware a person needs. Having some nice plates on which to showcase your food always helps. But, I didn't want to delay starting my blog until I got into a place with better light, so if you can put up with my mediocre photos until then, I promise things will get better. (What I could do with light streaming onto a dining room table. I salivate just thinking about it. In the meantime, my bat cave photos with lots of shadows will have to do for now.)

Frying up mushrooms

Back to the tomato soup. There are all kinds of wonderful food accompaniments to make this dish fresh every time you eat it. You can fry up some mushrooms and add it; add baby or regular-sized Goldfish crackers or oyster or saltine crackers, or make a toasted grilled cheese sandwich and cut it into little crouton-sized squares and add it. You can also add fresh dill; or oarmesan or cheddar or red-pepper cheese; cheese tortellini or any other kind of pasta, or all of the above. The variations are endless.

Yummmm. I'm going to go curl up with a bowl of my favorite soup now. Thank you very much.

Chicken and Lettuce Salad

I've brought a lot of candy and desserts into work lately and some of my co-workers declared I need to make something healthier, so I went for this salad option that I found in my mom's recipe box.

This recipe is easy to make ahead of time. Rather than add all the lettuce and Chow Mein noodles at one time, I chose to add them to single portion sizes. I also experimented with adding Ranch Dressing to the individual serving sizes, for some additional zing, and another time I added some sharp shredded cheddar cheese to a serving. Both were tasty variations.

Chicken and Lettuce Salad

You can use either Mayo (Hellmann's) or Miracle Whip!

3 hard boiled eggs
2 cups cooked chicken
1/2 bag frozen peas
1 cup sliced Spanish Olives
3 stalks of celery diced
1 cup mayo

Mix together and let sit a few hours or overnight.

Pictsweet Frozen Green Peas

Lindsay Spanish Olives

Celery

This handy dandy tool from Pampered Chef makes quick work of slicing and dicing hard-boiled eggs.

If you catch the egg coming through, with your other hand, you can reposition sideways on your tool and slice again for smaller pieces.

Ready to serve: add 1/2 head shredded lettuce small bag of Chow Mein noodles.

China Boy Chow Mein Noodles, Dole Just Lettuce

I fried four chicken breast cutlets in coconut oil. I didn't time them, but I did cut them open half way through cooking to make sure the insides were cooked thoroughly. I'm paranoid about undercooked meat.
I'm becoming a big believer in using meat thermometers. This chart (http://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/charts/mintemp.html) is a great resource on what temperature meat should be cooked to. 165 degrees Fahrenheit is the standard for poultry.

Regarding hard boiled eggs, I have found as many instructions online as there are people on the planet. The variation of the instructions that seems to work the best for me (at least for the small batches I do, which is usually never more than six eggs at a time) is to place the eggs in a pan with cold water. Bring the water to a rolling boil, or as I like to say, a "hearty boil" (you know, not just little bubbles, but really big, robust bubbles),  then remove the pan from the burner, immediately cover the pan, and start the timer for 12 minutes. This seems to get me great hard-boiled eggs every time.

The rest of this recipe is pretty self-explanatory.

Enjoy!