It’s been a day of making a list, checking it twice, taking it everywhere with me and being pleasantly surprised to have gotten everything ticked off.
My lists aren’t usually in order of priority. I just write down whatever I remember first and come back and add things as I remember them.
I do, however, like ticking things off my lists in order of most enjoyable to least. Which is why the cheesecake got done first thing in the morning.
Nothing like a bit of cooking along to a YouTube video first thing in the morning.
I took advantage of Toddler SSG’s sleep in make my favourite lemon cheesecake recipe from the One Pot Chef.
It’s easy, more addictive than the Aldi Special Buys page and only requires five ingredients.
It was very soothing unwrapping, blitzing and pressing as I put together the biscuit base.
The recipe makes a large cheesecake. Fortunately, I managed to find my rectangular springform cake tin during the great spare room declutter of June 2015.
Because it ended up being the perfect size for the cheesecake. Being springform, tin foiling the base was a snap.
I don’t know about you but the most frustrating days aren’t necessarily the ones during which lots of bad stuff happens but rather, the ones that start well and go to plan until lunch time before a series of small little annoyances build up that leave you feeling overwhelmed, a little bit stupid and completely over it all. Which then leads you to become so distracted by said small stupid things that you end the day in a state of counter productive self doubt. Thankfully, no harm was done yesterday and I woke up to a new day with new focus.
Focus is what you need plenty of when attempting to prepare 3 blocks of cream cheese for a cheesecake. For some reason, the cardboard packaging was much harder to open this morning than it was the last time I made a cheesecake. Would Kraft have changed their cardboard, I wonder?
It’s the big issues in Australian food production on a Tuesday morning. Allen’s have just announced today that they will be discontinuing Spearmint Leaves and Green Frogs due to poor sales. Red frogs (which outsell their green cousins ten to one) will be staying, as will Sherbies.
Oh, and Arnott’s Shapes don’t taste like they used to. Their flavour toppings are no longer 300% packed full of artificial flavours and colouring and the biscuits themselves don’t have that flaky crunch that they did back in the eighties. But I suspect you’ve already discovered this yourselves.
I did get there in the end with the cream cheese. Here it is cubed for a bit of softening up in the microwave.
The One Pot Chef runs a tight ship on his videos. I had to cheat and press pause in between stages.
The secret to his family recipe cheesecake having so much volume and hold is the juice of two large lemons.
We are advised in the video that bottled lemon juice will not work.
This is the freshly pruned lemon tree from which my cheesecake’s lemon juice came from. I’m always impressed at just how much juicier home grown lemons are than the ones I get at the supermarket.
The cheesecake’s all set to come with me to work tomorrow for morning tea. Just hope I remember to take it and my lunch out of the fridge before we leave.
There’s a warming aroma of thyme, lemon and honey in the air. I’ve got my ugg boots on. The heater’s thermostat is clicking periodically. A little watery winter sun is shining softly through the kitchen window and onto the tiles. It’s hard to resent winter when you get to enjoy the odd day like this.
What are you cooking for dinner tonight?
Will you be sad to see Spearmint Leaves and Green Frogs off the shelves at the supermarket? What will you now do for grass and leaves as decorations for your next birthday cake or cupcake?
