Chocolate in My Cheesecake Please

The question of the week - what to do with a few things of cream cheese I didn't want to go to waste? Cheesecake! Luckily that question has never been hard. I automatically think of cheesecake every time I think of cream cheese. No, it's probably not a healthy relationship between us, but I don't believe I've ever heard of meetings for cheesecake addicts, so it can't be all bad.

I didn't have much in my cupboards so I had to hunt for a recipe that didn't use sour cream and was pretty easy since it's not a payday week for me and I'm really trying to keep on budget. I couldn't justify going to the store just for items to make a cheesecake! At least not this week, in a few weeks ask again and I'm sure it would constitute and emergency, right along with a bag of chocolate and a coke. But I digress... here's where I found the cheesecake recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chocolate-chip-cheesecake-i/

The only thing I altered was I used chocolate graham crackers instead of regular ones with cocoa powder mixed in. I think it turned out fine, maybe even a little sweeter :-)  The greatest tip in this recipe is to coat your chocolate chips with just a touch of flour - apparently this keeps them from sinking towards the bottom! Worked great!

My cheesecake before it went into the oven - sprinkled with chocolate chips it looked amazing! Of course, the one of the right is when I pulled it out - even better! It was almost impossible to wait for it to cool down so I could test it out, but I managed to make it all night and had a piece (or two) for lunch the next day. It was worth the wait. I highly recommend this recipe - if I can make it and it turns out nearly perfect - there were a few cracks but that's because there was no water bath - I'm sure anyone can. Since we don't need an entire cheesecake just laying around I did cut it up, wrap it really good and put it in some freezer containers to pull out at a later date. Or I could just pull one out a day for a few days!

Carefree Puddle Stomping

 

There's something about puddles, especially the ones on dirt roads, that bring out the kid in the adult and the trouble in the kid. 

Don't you miss being so carefree all the time?

 

Class of 2012

So in my last piece on here I wrote about my sister graduating but hadn't gotten to the best part of the day - the party! (Or open house if you'd rather go that route)

 

We started the morning with heading off to church and meeting up with the rest of the family - All of my immediate family, except for my other little sister who decided to be a poop and refuse to show up, both sets of grandparents and then my aunt and uncle who live about 2 hours away.

 My grandparents on my dad's side and his oldest sister and her hubby met us early to attend church with us, major kudos to them because it takes about 2 hours for them to get here and church starts around 1030... not that bad of a drive and really not that early I guess, but on a Sunday morning not really something I'd want to do! The other set of grandparents met us out at the Alerus for the graduation ceremony directly after church.

Graduation went fairly quick. They had the varsity jazz band playing while everyone was coming in. Mrs. Aleshire never disappoints when it comes to good music for stuff like this, one of the best band directors/teachers I think most of the high schoolers in the city ever had. The graduates only half filled the allotted area this year, not sure if that was due to them not making it, or just a much smaller class then I remember having

After graduation it was a race
 out to the parents to get everything ready for the open house. BBQ pulled pork, cookie salad, fruit and veggies and then of course, cupcakes! Oh, and I printed out awesome little stickers for the bottom of tons of kisses, but I didn't do the sticking of the stickers. I'm sure that was tons of fun I didn't miss out on! The weather held up beautifully and we only had a few slight mistings, but nothing to make anyone want to leave or go inside. Over all I think it went pretty well.

On a different note - we saved a ton my making almost everything on our own. We did all our own cooking and even baked and decorated the cupcakes on our own - actually, I didn't, mom and the others at home did. The cake stands were an idea mom found on, take a guess, Pinterest! We of course manipulated them a little to fit our theme and keep it super cheap. Nothing but cardboard cake boards, cans of peas, scrap book paper, ribbon, hot glue and a little spray adhesive! Not bad and I think they turned out amazing! The kisses was also my mom's idea, I just happen to be lucky enough to work somewhere that I have the capabilities of printing out mass quantities of them very quickly. Pink lemonade in super cute dispensers borrowed from a friend topped off the whole look!