Secret Chef #2
This week Secret Chef #2 is Mrs. Susie Sunshine of Underpaid Kept Woman.
< que commentator>
"Mrs. Sunshine, a question from your adoring fans ...
What is your favorite dish for Thanksgiving?
< que Susie>
I love every food item at Thanksgiving because my Grandma makes nearly EVERYTHING! Well, I take that back. I don't love the vegetables because she tends to overcook them. And the cranberry sauce is still in the shape of the can she dumped it out of, but other than that EVERYTHING is wonderful. Yes, Grandma loves to cook and she loves to cook big, so everyone just backs away from the main dishes at Thanksgiving and brings...............dessert. Oh, our dessert selection is just AMAZING and the competition is fierce. I found a real winner with this cheesecake though. It's from Cooking Light and while not exactly Adkins approved, it's not quite as bad a regular cheesecake. The addition of the Cranberry Sauce topping makes it festive too. My crazy ass uncle doesn't eat many sweets and he always asks me to bring it. So now you HAVE to make it - it has the Crazy Ass Relative Seal of Approval! New York Cheesecake (almost like being there) Crust 2/3 c. flour 2 TB sugar 2 TB chilled stick butter, cut into small pieces 1 TB ice water Cooking spray Filling 3 (8 oz) blocks fat-free cream cheese, softened 2 (8 oz) blocks 1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened 1 3/4 sugar 3 TB flour 1 TB vanilla 1/4 tsp salt 5 large eggs Preheat oven to 400 degrees. To prepare crust, lightly spoon 2/3 c. flour into measuring cup, level with a knife. Place flour and 2 TB sugar in a food processor (if you are rich. I used my blender and it worked.) pulse 2 times or until combined. Add chilled butter; pulse 6 times or until mixture resembles coarse meal. With processor on, slowly pour ice water through food chute (or the removable thingy in the lid of your blender), processing just until blended (do not allow dough to form a ball. I don't know why, but it must be really bad because they specifically say so). Firmly press mixture into bottom of a 9" springform pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 400 for 10 minutes; cool on wire rack. (a counter works fine too.) Increase oven temp to 525. (My old oven only went to 500, but it still worked out.) To prepare filling, beat cheeses at high spped of a mixer until smooth. Add 1 3/4 cup sugar and next 5 ingredients; beat well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Pour cheese mixture into pan, bake at 525 degrees for 7 minutes (or 500 degrees for 11-12 minutes). Reduce oven temp. to 200 degrees, (do not remove cheesecake from oven); bake 40 minutes or until almost set. Remove cheesecake from oven; run a knife around outside edge. Cool to room temp. Cover and chill at least 8 hours. This cheesecake tastes great all on its own, but if you wanna get really fancy for the holidays, add: Cranberry Glaze 1/2 c. sugar 2 tsp. cornstarch 2 cups fresh cranberries 2/3 c. water Combine sugar and cornstarch in a medium saucepan; stir in cranberries and water. Bring to a boil over medium high heat; cook 5 minutes or until cranberries pop. Cool. Put in a fancy little dish with a fancy little spoon and make a fancy little label.Thank you, Susie! Thanksgiving Tip from Angie When serving biscuits and cornbread to your family do not throw out that last one or two pieces. Take 2 gallon sized freezer bags, lable one for cornbread the other for biscuits. Start filling those bags now for dressing for Thanksgiving. It will save you both time and money. Note: I am mad as hell at the moment. I just spent the last 30 minutes banging out paragraphs of my novel. Just as I hit save Microsoft shit software encountered an error and shut down. It did not go into recovery either!! I lost EVERYTHING I have written this morning! Dammity damn damn damn!!! Grrrr!!!!! I am worth $1,505,740 on HumanForSale.com
Angie, I am so sorry you lost all that you wrote. There ought to be a way to prevent that!
I am worth $1,563,026, and I want my money!
How did you get the tally results? After clicking submit, I kept getting a message that I had to enter a member name for FacetheJury.com I'm not a member of facethejury, so I couldnt complete the survey. ahh well, i'll just be worth a million in my own mind! LOL
And that is maddening to lose all that you wrote!!!!
I'm trying to keep the pounds off for the next week and a half- at least and this recipe does not help keep me focused!(Thanks Susie, I'm printing this out for later)
Sorry you lost your work. MSN is a bitch lately. I can't even have a proper conversation w/o being cut off ;-)
I'm scared to do the "how much are you worth" test. I don't want to have to worry about being kidnapped for ransom right now. I've got enough going on.
I wanna play that seems like so much fun. How do you get in on the secret chef!
Recipe looks good Mrs. Sunshine cant wait to bring that baby to thanksgiving.
Sorry about your writing Angie that sucks.
I got $0 for weighing 155. So perfection counts for nothing in that test. Pish. I DO have a perfect body, don't I?
Can I just say how much I love it that you said "when you serve biscuits or cornbread ..." because my idea of heaven is meals where one or the other, preferably both, are served. And since I'm a Yankee and live in Illinois, I think I'm actually going to have to die and go there for it to happen. Biscuits and cornbread are tragically scarce in these parts.
--P.
Thanks for the New cheese cake recipe-my Jim loves cheese cake and yours sound great! Can't wait to try it- he is going to be a lucky boy!
Oooh, I've been wanting this recipe. Thanks Angie and Susie!!
Angie, how did your doctor's appointment go? Do you like the new doctor?
I'm so sorry that you lost what you wrote.
Make sure you have your settings in Word set to "Save every 10 minutes" and do an initial save after your first paragraph.
Big hugs!
Ack. MS Word hates humanity.
I adore Thanksgiving. I cooked the whole meal two years in a row when we were far away from our family, and now I'm actually kinda sad that I don't get to do more. I usually just make my Cranberry Chutney and Red Cabbage and sit around with a beer now. It's not as fun.
Fun site. I had to follow Susie. I mentioned her on my blog today, and had a regular reader email with with "aaaarrrrghhhh...you're in big trouble! I just spent all morning reading Susie Sunshine (and it's all your fault)"! I absolutely hate when my computer gobbles my stuff. Happens on a regular basis. I wish I knew all the shortcuts, because I hit something that makes the screen disappear. It's something by the shift key. It must be some sort of delete key. Drives me nuts. And forget it if I'm on a laptop. Evil! And, I think the proper spelling is 'cue'. A line is a queue, but otherwise 'cue' is correct.
Does cranberry sauce come any other way than in the shape of the can it came in? :)
As the daughter of hopeless cooks, I consider myself fortunate that I overcame my upbringing and have taught myself how to cook. Now I'm not like you, I'm not much for winging it, but I'm able to cook something other than dried out chicken or pork chops and my kids actually have favorite meals that I cook. And the best part is my 13 year old daughter loves to cook and we cook and watch cooking shows together.