Where did February go?

Um, a month has gone by and nothing has been posted here....where did February go? We both had colds. I got new glasses. We went to a conference in Memphis for work. We took S out for breakfast one morning...more about that later. Other than that, I can't think of anything major. There were a few birthdays in the family (Happy birthday again Grandma B. and KGB!!!).

Here's the S story: Last weekend we were talking on the phone with Kirsten on our way home from work on Friday. S asked his mommy who she was talking to and she said, "Joseph and Katy." S asked to talk to J on the phone. He asked if we were coming over for dinner! When J said that we weren't, S then asked if we could come pick him up and take him to dinner! We already had plans, so we asked if we could take him out to breakfast instead. He was excited by that plan so Saturday morning, we picked up S and went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. He was an angel. He brought some money to buy a lollipop from the "candy store" there.

After breakfast, we gave S the option of running around town with us or going back to our house to watch the movie "Cars" on TV. No surprise, he chose the movie. So we got back to the house and piled up in the bed to watch the movie. S knew the rules - he got on to Joseph for not taking off his shoes in the bed! We hadn't been home ten minutes when S asked if we had any snacks! Cracked me up. It makes sense though, we like to munch while watching TV too, so I brought out all sorts of unhealthy options. We had corn chips, powdered donuts, and chocolate covered pretzels - a feast for kings. S made it about 3/4 of the way through the movie before he said he was done. He hopped down from the bed and we took him home. It was a fun morning. Here's a pic of him loving on Della in his "pillow palace."



I'll end with a good recipe. We took dinner to Debra and Nathan on Valentine's Day. We had been trying to arrange a time to take them some food every since Baby B had been born, but hadn't been able to coordinate schedules until then. Initially we were just going to drop off the food, but they asked us to stay and eat with them, so we made a double date out of it. After dinner I ended up holding that snuggle bug of a baby for the longest time. He is such a little love. Anyway, Debra likes peanut butter, Nathan likes cheesecake, so Joseph did some searching and came across this recipe for a peanut butter cheesecake for dessert. It was divine. We made some changes to the original recipe, so I'm only going to post our modified version.

Peanut Butter Cheesecake

32 oz. cream cheese, softened
4 lg. eggs
1 1/3 cups sugar (plus an additional 4 tbsp for the whipped sour cream topping)
1 cup creamy peanut butter (don't use low fat here)
1 cup cream (for whipped topping)
3 tablespoons cream (for filling)
1/4 cup cream (for ganache)
1 box chocolate graham crackers, pulverized in blender or food processor to make 1 3/4 cups crumbs
1 stick butter
1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips (we used the mini size)
1 c sour cream (don't even think about using low fat here)


Directions:
Beat up the cream cheese and sugar until soft and well combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, then 3 tbsp of the cream, then the peanut butter. It is best to do this in a running mixer. After the peanut butter is well combined, fold in by hand about a cup or so of the mini chocolate chips. Preheat the oven to 350. Take the stick of butter and use part of it to generously coat the sides and bottom of a 10 inch springform pan. Melt the rest of the butter and mix it with the chocolate graham cracker crumbs to make a chocolate crust. Pat the crust into the pan and a little bit up the sides - just make sure to cover the bottom edge of the pan to seal in the filling. Pour the filling into the crust and bake in the center of the oven for 45 to 50 minutes. (45 minutes worked in our oven.)

To make the ganache topping: near then end of the baking time, get a double boiler going on the stove top. In the top of the double boiler heat 1/4 cup of cream. Once the cream is hot (not boiling, but just below a simmer), add the rest of the chocolate chips into it and stir until smooth and creamy.

Once the cheesecake is done (after 45-50 minutes), turn the oven off. Open the oven door, slide the rack out and pour the ganache on top of the cheesecake. Put the cheesecake back into the oven and let it cool for at least one hour, even better is two hours.

We served our cheesecake with fresh berries and a whipped sour cream topping.

To make the topping: beat one cup of heavy cream with 4 tbsp sugar in a mixer until stiff peaks form. Gently fold in 1 cup of sour cream until well combined. (This is the frosting used on Jan Karon's Orange Marmelade Cake - the cake we ate at mom's 60th birthday party for those who remember that cake.) Put a generous plop of this on top of the cheesecake to serve.

ENJOY and unbutton your pants before eating.

I know this goes against the whole "eating healthy" thing we posted before, but sometimes eating something really decadent is a nice change.

Here's a picture of the plate we took to Debra and Nathan's. (minus the cream)