Cheesecake - Alaskified!

Mr EA's birthday was this past week, and in addition to cooking a favorite meal, I also made him his favorite cake for desert.  As it happens, his favorite cake is cheesecake, and his favorite form of it is little mini individual cheesecakes.  We arrived at this conclusion after years of me making a cheesecake, then him not eating it quickly enough, and me having to throw 1/4 of it away, followed by weeping and lamentations.  By making the little mini cheesecakes, I can freeze most of them, and he can thaw them out and have one whenever he wants. 
     The recipe I use is from an old recipe book I got from Kraft/Philadelphia Cream Cheese, entitled Ultimate Philly Cream Cheese Cheesecakes.  Guess what it is about! I will go ahead and post the recipe, because this book is at least 1.5 decades old, and possibly older. 

Philly 3-step Mini Cheesecakes
2 packages (8 oz. each) of Philadelphia Brand cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 tsp. of vanilla
2 eggs
2 packages (4 oz each) of Keebler Ready-Crust single serve graham cracker Pie Crusts (total of 12 crusts)
Optional: whipped cream, little candies, whatever other junk you like to put on cheesecake. 

Special New Alaskan Addition:
1 Tbsp. birch syrup

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Mix cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until well blended.  Add eggs, mix until blended again.  Pour mixture into pie crusts.  Divide the birch syrup between the cakes, pouring a little into each. When the birch syrup has been poured over the pies, swirl or stripe it in, using a table knife to create whatever patterns you like best.  Bake for 20 minutes or until centers are set.  Cool cakes and refrigerate. 

Result, 12 delicious little single serve treats!  Also, we like to use the lightened cream cheese to make it a little less fatty, but you know, sometimes you have to live a little. 

The Local - Chips!

Like any sector of America with the slightest hint of local pride, Alaska is home to its own local brand of chips.  Chips are usually the tip of the local-snack iceberg, so I'll be keeping an eye out for other Alaska snack opportunities (other than jerky - been there, done that). 

  Alaska Chip Company is based here in Anchorage, and proudly uses Mat-Su Valley Potatoes (of earlier, eating-local-post fame).  They come in a variety of flavors, each with a cutesy Alaska-y name.  Chilkoot Chips, pictured here, are sour cream and chive.  Grizzly is barbecue flavor, which although tasty was briefly disappointing, as I had hoped they would be bear flavored.  Tragically, not so.  But the barbecue is pretty good, even so.  They have four flavors, all of which are available at various places in the area.  They also sell popcorn, but I don't generally like bagged popcorn, so haven't tried it.  The chips themselves are kettle-style, with a good solid crunch and a nice potato flavor.  Also, the humorous origin story on the bag is something fun to read while you crunch your tasty chips.  The flavors are not crazy, like Pennsyvania' Herr's brand, which basically sells itself on its willingness to give its snack products wacky flavors like pickle or ketchup. If eating local and patronizing a quirky hometown manufacturer is something you believe in, the Alaska Chip Company will amply reward your civic vitue. 

Coming in from slightly further afield, from our suburb to the southeast (Washington State), we also have Tim's Chips.  Tim's is a bit more established and has a wider variety of product, with both Tim's and the Hawaiian Chips lines to their name. Both lines feature good thick kettle style chips with impressive crunch and good flavors that don't overpower the deep-fried potato flavor.   The Hawaiian line features slightly more exotic flavors, and different bag art, but otherwise are the same chips.  The Tim's flavor I like best so far is the Johnny's Seasoned Salt flavor.  Which reminds me I've got to track down some of that salt!

I try to buy King Arthur Flour - Denied!

Well, OK, not denied, but grossly overcharged. 
     I am originally from the Mid-Atlantic states, and used to occasionally buy King Arthur Flour co products - they have pretty good stuff, and it's hard not to be carried away by their enthusiasm.  So I need some baking supplies, and naturally turn to their website. 
     I'm going along, blithely putting purchases in my cart, until I had everything I wanted plus a few things I didn't even know I needed until I got to their site.  At this point, shipping charges are $8, which seemed fair enough.  Then I get to checkout and put in my address, and the shipping changes to $17.50!!!
     I know Alaska's far away and all, but seriously?  We're not on the moon, you know.  Also, the post office has those awesome new flat rate shipping boxes - there's no reason for this.  It's an outrage!  Or a cause for slight pique, at the least. 
 This is the sort of thing that kind of reminds me why there are so many independent providers of goods and services here - shipping has always been a big expense for this state.  So anyway, I am just going to do without my special flavoring things and boiled cider.  For those prices, I will just boil my own darn cider! 
Does anyone know of a west coast provider of baking supplies?  One that understands that AK is part of America?

Sourdough Chronicles - Fail II

Ok, so I found another way that won't work.  It looked so lively for the first few days, then it lapsed into unconsciousness, then it began to decay.  I just washed the terrifying murky liquid down the sink and escorted the rest out to the garbage. 
Well, back to the drawing board!  I have another method in mind to try, so later this week we'll see if it leads to brilliant success or to the senseless waste of another 2 cups of flour and water!

Thanksgiving

The traditional Thanksgiving meal, of course, is a turkey (roasted or deepfried or grilled or whatever) and a wide variety of side.  The tradition persists in the face of historical protestations that the pilgrims couldn't have had those foods, in the face of vegetarians not wanting to eat turkey, in the face of the untasty nature of turkey itself.  At least that's what I had always thought.
     An informal survey of several of my coworkers revealed that many were planning roast pork tenderloin, chicken, or beef roast.  I would be interested in finding out if that's because:
1) we are out west now and that pilgrim stuff doesn't matter so much here
2) the turkey tradition is fading
3) I work with odd people
4) or what. 

Mr EA and I are celebrating with homemade pizza and a movie marathon (Lord of the Rings trilogy, for those of you playing along at home), and we are very thankful for it!  We have done this for years and enjoy it very much.  Also, Mr EA enjoys carving the roast 'za :)

As a concession to the holiday, I made a pumpkin pie because we both like it, and a cranberry relish because I like cranberry. 

Anyway, what did you do for your Thanksgiving feast?

  

Sourdough Chronicles - Take 2

Well, after a crazy week, I finally had time yesterday to get back on the sourdough horse (? too much metaphor?).  Anyway, this time I opted for the simplest method, which was to mix 2 cups of flour, 2 cups of water, and a packet of yeast in the container, place it someplace warm and stride briskly away. 
It succeeded brilliantly, at least in this initial phase...

It's ALIVE!  Ahh ha ha ha ha !

But seriously.  I decided to do this yesterday because the oven was going to be going to some degree or another for a couple of hours, and I figured the warmth would do the starter some good.  It seems to have worked, at least at this point.  We'll give it a couple of days and see how it looks then.  But anyway, sourdough, at about 75%!  Keep your fingers crossed...

Sourdough Chronicles - Temporary Setback

Well, the sourdough starter from the tourist pack didn't work.  It just never took off, but rather sort of lay there being polite.  And then started decomposing.  There could have been a number of reasons why not:
1) starter no longer good
2) starter was never any good, but was instead cruel hoax
3) too cool in house (we keep it around 60F)
4) destiny
...or who knows.
But anyway, back to the drawing board! 
    Thanks to my earlier research, I have about 5 other methods to try.  Since it isn't like I'm gambling with rare and costly ingredients, I decided I am going to just try one method at a time, in a random order, and see what happens. Eventually something will work.  Or else it won't, which will condemn me to a lifetime of shame and buying sourdough bread at the store.
      As soon as the jar is washed out, we're on to method 2, which is yet to be determined.  Stay tuned to see what daring adventures await flour and water in the next installment of...
The Sourdough Chronicles.