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

My little world of finance (and rainy days and animals)

Cliff has been selling things lately, so we've been making larger deposits at the bank than is normal for us, since the only deposits that usually go into our checking account are from our social security accounts.  He sold the Allis Chalmers tractor last week for a healthy sum; the buyer is fairly local  (Blue Springs) and wanted to write a check on the condition that he wouldn't come and pick up the tractor until the check had cleared.  Cliff agreed to that.  Monday morning we drove to the bank to deposit the check.  On Wednesday the guy contacted us and said it had cleared his bank; I told him it would probably clear our bank by the next morning, and that's exactly what happened.  I did realize a hold would have been put on the check, but it was to be released from the hold Thursday, and the fellow was coming for the tractor on Saturday.  Perfect.  

All proceeds from Cliff's tractor hobby go into his savings account... it's all his, and I am proud of that, since I'm the one who made that rule.  Of course, if he buys a tractor, that comes out of his tractor fund account, too. This is a man who, early in our marriage, had to get by on five dollars a week to buy the gas to get to work, and for most of his life, his money was our only income.  

When I got online to move the now-available money from checking to his savings account, I noticed most of the money was gone from our checking account except for the now-approved money from the sold tractor.  There was, in fact, only $12 left in checking after I moved that money.  I called the bank and was told there was another hold, an "Exception hold" of $675.  And I had a bill to pay!  I asked for an explanation and the lady said she'd look into it and call back, but she didn't.  However, the next day I got a letter from the bank saying that particular hold was because we deposited more than we were supposed to on Monday.  This hold lasts longer than the hold on the check, though, until next Wednesday.  And I needed to pay that bill sooner than that.  So I had to go to my little puny savings (I'm a little jealous of Cliff's money, can you tell?) and move funds to checking so I could pay the bill in a timely manner.

Things are strange since the Covid 19 shut-down, so maybe that has something to do with it, and it may be normal procedure for all banks.  But I can't understand why they had to hold money because of a deposit that had already cleared... and such a strange amount!  I had no deposits or withdrawals for that amount.  I hope they invest my money wisely before they let me have it back next Wednesday.

Enough of that.  Folks, we have been getting rain, rain, and more rain:  five inches one day, three another.  One day it rained off and on all day, but when it let up at noon, I let the three pullets out.  I hoped maybe the rain was finished; I was wrong: it was just getting ready to rain harder.  Later on in the evening, I looked out and all three not-too-bright chickens were out in the downpour as though they thought they were ducks!  I've been around chickens all my life and never seen hens that would stay out in the rain; they usually go running to the henhouse at the first few drops.  It wasn't too long until it would get dark, so I went to drive them in their house.  I grabbed an umbrella, but it was useless:  I learned you can't drive hens into the henhouse in the rain while holding an umbrella over your head.  In fact, you can't drive them into the henhouse if they don't want to go, period.  In the end, I went sloshing back to the house and put on dry clothes, leaving the hens to put themselves into the house on their own.  But until then they continued running around in the rain.  So who's the crazy one?  Maybe it isn't the chickens at all.  Especially since that wasn't the first time that day I got soaked in the rain messing around with animals.

Yeah, some folks never learn.  Earlier on the morning of that same very rainy day, I had opened the front door to see if Blue the cat was on the porch waiting to be let in, although  I hoped he was either staying dry under the back porch or out at the barn, because we were having a torrential downpour... but no.  He was curled up on the corner of the soaking-wet porch (a porch that does nothing to protect from rain).  When he got up, he left what was the only dry spot on the whole porch, and that pitiful little dry spot where he'd been huddled up as small as possible made me sad.  He ate his canned food and played with Gabe awhile, then I ran out to the barn with him and left him there.  Yes, I got soaked doing it, and wouldn't you know he was back at the door (wet) within 10 minutes.  

He is currently spending lots of time with the big cats in the barn, as well as several neighboring cats who sneak in daily.  There's an older couple nearby who feed all the strays, and they seem to come over here for snacks.  In fact, my Jake has moved over there permanently.  Maybe it was something I said, or maybe they serve better food.   

Gabe has a birthday today:  he turns three years old.  I'm 76, and  I sometimes wonder which of us will be the first to die.  It needs to be him, because nobody else would put up with his jealous, needy, bark-out-the-window behavior if I were gone.  You could say the same for me, actually (except for the barking-out-the-window part, but I sometimes sing pretty loud). But I'm a human, so I have some say-so about what happens to me, at least until the point I'm not capable any more.

Have a good, thankful Sunday, won't you?  

Cheerfully,

Donna