Ooooh..new people!!

Hello and welcome to all my friends new to the blog! :D I'm happy to see some familiar faces here...make yourselves at home in my little corner of the interwebs...as you can see, I kind of randomly blog about whatever's on my mind at the time...rants, raves, beauty, babies, etc.

Soooo today, it's another rant...I'm good for those, cuz...well...I'm an angry little girl.

Well...at my job, parking sucks. We have one parking lot...and it's on a hill...so you get a workout if you're parked at the top of it...but if you get here after about 0830, you probably won't get a spot. Fortunately we have an overflow parking lot about a mile away from my building...it has plenty of parking spaces, and we've got shuttles that drive back and forth between the lot and the building, for those of us too lazy to walk. For the most part, it's a great little setup, but there's one shuttle driver who makes me absolutely, bat sh*t crazy.

Now, I understand the notion of waiting for someone if they're running toward the shuttle...that's just the polite thing to do...but this guy. This guy sits. And waits. And waits. Now these guys are on a schedule...but damned if that schedule doesn't go to sh*t when this guy's driving...because he will NOT leave the parking lot until there's NO ONE in it. I'm serious. If we're starting to pull away when a car drives in, he'll stop and wait until the person finds a spot, parks, gets their crap together, rummages through their trunk, plays a game of monopoly, locks the car, walks toward the bus, realizes they forgot their coffee, walks back to get it, and then finally makes their way back to, and on the bus. Once we've finally picked up this jacka** and start to FINALLY leave...another car comes in...and so it goes, on and on and on. I told you it's only about a mile from this lot to my building...short drive...well with THIS dude, there've been times when I've gotten up to my desk a full HALF HOUR after I got on the bus. Are you kidding me?! Do these guys get paid per person?!?!?!

Some days I just really hate people. Really. A lot. No joke.

On a completely different note; where IS everyone today? It seems like everyone has collectively taken the day off but me. I'm hungry. What's for lunch? Ah...speaking of lunch, that's something else I should really include in my little blog...food and recipes that I love...let's see if I can remember one off the top of my head...Oh! Here we go...my favorite; cheesecake!

Missy's favorite cheesecake recipe

Crust:

1 sleeve graham crackers, crushed (you can use the pre-made crumbs, too...I want to say it's a cup and a half, but find what works best for you)

1/4 cup of sugar

1 stick unsalted butter

orange zest

Melt the butter in a medium size bowl, and combine with the other ingredients. You want the ratio of crumbs to butter to be such that the crumbs want to stick together, but aren't completely soaked with butter. If it seems too buttery, add some more crumbs to it...there's a bit of trial and error involved with finding the ratio that you prefer. Just remember to write down all the ratios you try, and the result of them, that way you won't forget! Once you've got the crust all mixed together, press it into the bottom and sides of a springform pan (this is why we want it somewhat sticky...otherwise it won't stick to the sides). I usually spray a little bit of Pam for baking into my pan first...you don't necessarily have to, but I recommend it, especially if your cheesecake batter will be touching the sides of the pan at all, rather than the crust.

The good part:

3 packages of cream cheese (I use Philadelphia...and DON'T use the fat free or reduced fat stuff! It'll totally throw off the recipe!)

8oz sour cream (I like Breakstone...and again, no using the fat free or reduced fat stuff!)

3 large eggs

1 Cup sugar

2 tsp Grand Marnier (or whatever orange liquer you have)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees for a light-coated pan, or 325 for a dark one.

Whip the cream cheese one at a time until fluffy. Add in the sugar and mix until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, ensure that each one is fully incorporated before you add the next. Add in the Grand Marnier and mix again. Follow with the sour cream and beat lightly until fully incorporated. Pour the batter into the springform pan and set on the middle rack in your oven for 50-60 minutes. This will vary with each oven...start checking it around 50 minutes, just stick a toothpick in the middle, and if it comes out clean, you're done. Once the cheesecake is finished baking, turn the oven off and let it sit with the oven door partially open for an hour. After the cheesecake has rested for an hour, you can put on whatever topping you'd like (I prefer this one without a topping), cover it with plastic wrap, and put it in the refrigerator to set overnight.

You can also set the pan in a water bath when you're baking it, which supposedly prevents the cake from cracking, but I find it's too much of a pain in the butt (you have to wrap the bottom of the pan in foil to make sure no water gets into it), and also because you've used alcohol in the batter, it tends to puff up higher than it would normally, so the water bath doesn't honestly make a difference here.

The Grand Marnier doesn't leave a very strong taste at all, and since you control how much orange zest is in the crust, you can decide how much flavor that has...but the hint of orange really is lovely. I started making my cheesecake this way a couple years ago, when I wanted to experiment, and everyone who's had it really enjoys it, so it's become my signature cake. If you don't want, or don't like the GM, you can add vanilla extract in its' place, and leave out the orange zest alltogether. You can also make a GM/sugar reduction to drizzle over the cheesecake if you want to add another little pop of flavor.

This cheesecake recipe has the benefit of being extremely versatile. You can substitute and add things, and it'll still be a good recipe, proportion-wise. I made one recently with Disarono (amaretto liquer) in place of the GM, and almond biscotti as the crust...that one was also a big hit. LOL

Use your imagination and experiment...it's fun, and even your "accidents" are delicious. :)