Oreos and Cheesecake in a Cupcake. . . What Could Be Better?????

I had been saving this recipe/blog entry by Grace @ Graces Sweet Life for a recipe called Oreo Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes for quite some time now.  It popped up on my Stumble site and is now a favorite.  Actually, Grace says it's from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes recipe book.

One look at those cheesecakes and my girls and I KNEW these would have to happen at our house.  I waited until my daughter's graduation (her name is Gracie, too!) to try them out. I choose to ignore the cardinal rule of always trying out recipes before major entertaining events.  I know this rule.  I have been burned when neglecting it on more than one occasion.  However, I chose to ignore it due to time constraints.  I am a procrastinator at heart.  Don't do that.

The recipe was a sinch.  One batch made more than I thought, so I ended up only making three batches instead of my intended five.  Thank goodness. . . I was pressed for time as graduation was the next day.

The only glitch was the presentation.  The latter part of the recipe calls for a squirt of canned whipping cream and a chunk of oreo.  We had to prepare these ahead of time, but by the time company arrived, the whipping cream had melted to a puddle.  Ughhh. . . not a pretty site.  I was in dispair.  The broken oreo lay there in the puddle a top the cheesecake.  I had even put them in the fridge to help maintain the shape of the whipping cream.

Still yummy of course, but not very appetizing to the naked eye.  I asked my mother-in-law what could have happened and she asked if I used real whipping cream.  Heavens.  I don't know!  I ran to the can to check.  The can said it contained REAL whipping cream, so maybe that was not the issue.  What a mystery.

I scraped the whipping cream off and did a fresh squirt of cream and stuck them in the freezer till serving time.  This worked okay, but still, not the same.  Needless to say,  I have several dozen leftover little cheesecakes frozen in the freezer as I write.  I'm not sure how I will use them. . . maybe I'll pull them out after meals and reintroduce them to my family as something new.  Or, I could chop them up and put them in something else. . . ice cream???  Between layers of chocolate cake?  Who knows where my mind will take them?

Ideas for next time would be to use cake frosting for the top of the cheesecakes. . . maybe butter cream frosting shaped and formed with a cake decorating tool.  It would hold it's shape and be way yummy.  Or, maybe, just make sure to put the whipping cream on just before serving.

Regardless, I will make these again.  They are way to easy not to.  And we are all cheesecake and oreo cookie lovers at my house. Workin out the kinks is part of life!  And figuring out what to do with mistakes is just as fun. :-)

Shari

Smores Galore!!

The girls and I made these bars the other night.  The recipe popped up on my Stumble site.  If you do not have Stumble, you need to get it.  It is way cool.  You sign up (easy to do and it's free) and you type in your interests (cooking).  You click on the tab "Stumble" and random sites pop up that you would normally never get to that are focused on your interests.  The sites have been chosen by many others with similar interests, so you know they are worth your time.  I get stuck stumbling on the food sites for an embarrassing amount of time.  Usually Lauren is right alongside me and we are gaga over the recipes and photos.  Here was the pick of the night:

Warm Toasted Marshmellow Smores Bars

These bars were divine.  I used chocolate chip cookie dough instead of the sugar cookie packaged stuff it says to use.  Who buys packaged cookie mixes?  I just substituted a little of the brown sugar for extra white when I made the dough from scratch.

The bars tasted even better on Day 2.  Ask Ryan.  I think he ate some for breakfast and then after school he and his buddy ate a couple of rows.  :-)  16 year old boys can just eat like that.

Yum!
Shari :-))

Staples to Have ALL THE TIME. . .

There are a number of ingredients one needs for virtually every recipe, or really, one can make into something good if you just have these staples.  Make sure your pantry always includes:
*onions
*celery
*potatoes
*garlic salt, pepper, seasoned salt
*chicken, beef (and pork for variety) broth, bouillon
*olive oil, butter or canola oil
*flour
*rice, pasta, Kashi grains - any kind of starch (wheat pasta if you can- better for ya)
*canned goods - chopped tomatoes, corn, beans (black beans, kidney beans), spaghetti sauces, couple cans of cream of soups
*frozen veggies - whatever you like
*meat - hamburger, wild game (we like venison), chicken, pork chops, ring baloney, bacon
*eggs
*bread
*mayo
*beans - black, kidney, whatever. . . canned
*oatmeal
You can throw together almost any meal if you have these items.
Shari :-)

Gracie's Cookin!

Grace was cravin' cinnamon rolls.  Bein' none of us actually had the gumption to make the real stuff, she bundled up and headed to Hugos for a can of Pillsbury stick-in-the oven rolls.

"Did you know the rolls with cream cheese frosting have only 9 grams of fat and the regular ones have 19?"  she asks me. "How can that be?"  This look of complete befuddlement on her face.  Honestly, the girl does NOT need to be worrying about fat grams.

Grampa walked in the door with Dad - the snowmobile race was cancelled on account of being to windy out.  Lucky we had some rolls in the oven.  Grampa doesn't really care if they are rolls from a can either (or the fat grams).