All for the love of cheesecake

The only cheesecake I normally make is that no-bake cherry cheesecake pie you see around at family dinners:  It's so easy, and everybody loves it.  Almost two years ago I made a delicious cheesecake in the Instant Pot; it was perfect, but for some reason, I never tried it again.  Today I found the recipe I used before.  It's in the Instant Pot right now.  I'm hoping for the best, because I didn't mix the filling properly, so there are tiny lumps in the mix.  I was supposed to add the wet ingredients slowly, but I dumped everything in at once.  In my defense, the blogger who came up with this recipe puts so many pictures on an entry, it's hard to find the instructions when you need them; Pioneer Woman is guilty of that too, too many pictures!  As I told Cliff, baked cheesecake can be touchy at best, so who knows how it will turn out.  Usually if I mess up a recipe at the beginning like that, I dump everything and start over.  But it's just me and Cliff, so I decided to take it all the way and see what it's like.  If I remember, I'll let you know.  That won't be today, though, because this cheesecake has to be refrigerated for 24 hours before it's perfect.  Crazy, I know.  

Thinking about cheesecake got me thinking about something my mother used to make for every potluck dinner she went to for a two- or three-year period.  It was a no-bake recipe using lemon Jello for the flavor.  I loved the stuff, but didn't pay a lot of attention to how it was made.  I didn't have a man to cook for at the time, and Mother made it often enough to satisfy me when I visited.  Through the years I'd think about that cheesecake, wishing I'd written down the recipe.

Then the Internet happened.  A couple of years ago I did a Google search with the words "cheesecake" and "jello":  There was Mother's cheesecake recipe, only it was called Woolworths cheesecake; Woolworths served it at their lunch counter!  No wonder it made such a huge amount.  I recall Mother having a problem once or twice with remembering to get the Jello out of the refrigerator before it firmed up too much, so she ended up sometimes with tiny flecks of Jello in it.  The recipe says put the mixed jello in the refrigerator five to ten minutes until it's slightly thick; I doubt 10 minutes is going to thicken it any.  

I do intend to try this just for old time's sake, but I'll have to recruit relatives to help us get rid of it.  The grandson is losing weight and not eating much, but maybe our daughter's family could help us out some weekend.  We could have a Woolworth's cheesecake party, right?  If you're interested, you'll find the recipe HERE.  And HERE.  Or just type "Woolworths cheesecake".  It's EVERYWHERE.

Meanwhile, I have re-discovered my mom's breaded tomatoes.  That's what she called them.  I went looking on all-recipes.com and found out why my own creation never tasted right to me:  I wasn't using enough sugar... although honestly, the amount of sugar in that recipe on the website was far more than Mother used, I'm sure, so on my second try I got it just right, then broke up soda crackers in it; my mom sometimes used bread rather than crackers, but I prefer crackers.  It's the same as when I found that recipe for turnips that tasted like those my mom made: sugar was the secret.  The grandson is not putting turnips in his wildlife plot this year, so I bought some seeds and tossed them into a bare space in my little garden.  They were up and growing in two days' time, so I may get my supply of creamed turnips again this year.  

This morning I picked about a quart of green beans that I intend to cook, drain, and cover with cheese sauce, since I have lots of American cheese on hand.  Cliff is still on his strange diet, and he's actually lost some weight.  Oh yes, and he likes my cheese grits now.  I guess it really is an acquired taste, because he had no love for grits when he first tasted them... although I don't think I had graduated to making cheese grits that first time.  That could explain it.  I have a few ears of corn I need to pick and do something with before the next planting is ready, so I guess that's next on my day's agenda.  Our tomatoes are about done, but when I get small ones, or those that have been nibbled by bugs or slugs in places, I trim them up, peel them and make more breaded tomatoes.  My breakfasts lately have consisted of breaded tomatoes and cheese grits.  

That's my great big cornfield.  lt consists of two rows side-by-side.  There are two plantings in those two rows; the first delicious planting needs to be picked today, or it'll get tough and starchy.  I planted the first half of the two rows, waited two weeks, then planted the rest of each row, so each planting would have some help pollinating.  

I did not intend to freeze corn this year, but I can't let it go to waste, either.  So here goes; there are about 8 more ears ready in the garden, and then the next crop.  Remind me that two old folks can't eat that many ears of corn before it gets tough.  Probably half a dozen seeds would have given me all I wanted.   

OK, I think that does it.  I hope your day is going well; at 10:30 AM, it's 72 degrees, with a forecast high of 78.  I'm loving it.

Yours truly,

Donna