On Mar 6, 7:19�am, Kajikit > wrote:
> I went to the grocery store yesterday for milk and the cheesecake in
> the bakery cabinet was calling my name really loudly... yelling it in
> fact! lol. I haven't had any in soooooooo long because it has no
> redeeming health value whatsoever, and so many calories from all the
> milkfat and sugar. I was very tempted to buy a piece and eat it on the
> spot, but I also realised that for very little more money I could buy
> the ingredients to make a whole cheesecake myself. And they had
> beautiful strawberries on sale in the fruit section...
>
> I gathered up strawberries, a packet of marie biscuits (they make a
> better crust than graham crackers because they're not so gritty, plus
> they're cheap!) and hit the dairy cabinet to get some cream cheese. I
> dithered around a bit there. I've always used Philadelphia cream
> cheese to make my cheesecake, but they've put so much gunk into it
> nowadays that they don't even call it 'cream cheese' any more! Take a
> close look at the label (and the ingredients list) some day and see
> what I mean... there was a store brand cream cheese but the
> ingredients list was just the same as the Philly stuff. But next to
> them was something called 'farmers cheese' in a little white
> cream-cheese shaped packet and it had exactly three ingredients -
> milk, salt, and rennet. I wasn't sure if it would work, but I figured
> it was worth experimenting. It was only about thirty cents more than
> the Philly junk. I stopped at the farmers market for some fresh lemons
> and I was good to go.
>
> When I got home I whipped up the crumb crust and baked it, and then I
> made the filling. The cheese was softer and grainier than cream
> cheese, but it whipped up just fine in the blender with the condensed
> milk. I put some strawberries into the mix for colour (the condensed
> milk was so old it looked like dulce de leche when I opened the can!)
> and juiced the lemons. I chopped up the rest of the strawberries and
> put them in the bottom of the crumb crust, and then I poured the
> cheese mix on top of it and baked the whole thing for twice as long as
> I usually do just to make sure it was as set as it was going to get. I
> was rather dubious about it when it came out of the oven, but it set
> up nicely when it cooled down, and it tasted delicious! I'll
> definitely be buying that cheese again. Thank you Publix! Plus there
> was a bonus - regular cream cheese has 100 calories an ounce, and the
> 'light' stuff has 70. But the farmers' cheese only has 40 calories per
> ounce, so we saved a whack of fatty calories right there!
>
> And how was the cheesecake? Delicious! Very soft last night, but it
> firmed up overnight and this morning it was firm enough to cut a slice
> and pick it up to eat without it falling apart. Yes, I admit it - I
> had strawberry cheesecake for breakfast!

This sounds absolutely delicious, and the added of bonus of cutting a
few calories to make it a bit healthier makes it even better. Good
for you, tryig something a little fdifferent!!

Rosie