A Great Team

Being at a new school, has had its ups and downs! By far, the biggest "up" is the new family I have joined, namely Jami, Claire and Tammy. To further foster this new and exciting relationship, we decided to break bread, or, to be more specific, drink wine with really delicious appetizers! We decided to meet at Tammy's house after school and the rest is, as they say, school history! What is the perfect dessert to accompany this menagerie? Well, cheesecake dreams! I had made them for the Charger Party and thought they would be delicious with the girls.

To get started, I had to poke my head out the window to my wonderful neighbor, "Janelle, do you have an 8" by 8" dish?" "Of course, I do!" she says. And, like many other times before, our neighbors always seem to have what we need and vice verse!

On to the dreams, I mixed the brown sugar, flour and walnuts. I just needed to melt butter, so I threw the amount in a ramekin and hit the start button. Apparently, it wasn't long enough, so I turned it on for a few more seconds and, unfortunately, it frothed all over the place. Argh! Now, how do you measure the melted butter that frothed up and over? I asked myself. At this point, most people, including myself if I were sane in the kitchen, would just dump it and start over. No, not me. I tried to quantify it and then add it to the ramekin. Oh, and by the way, Tracy has mastered this technique so I got to hear all about how I was doing it wrong. Huh, melting butter will have to be added to my "not that good at" list.(And, yes, this is a lot of talk about butter...you may think it silly but Julia Child would think it a proper discussion! Hee hee) Ultimately, the butter created glorious crumbs! Glorious crumbs!

Now, to the cream part. Mmmmm, cream. This needed lots of blending and a few dashes of fun things before it was all ready for the oven. Since, I haven't baked much this is a real exciting point because you just know it's going to be yummy...maybe that's why I haven't baked much...how can you be a skinny baker? No, seriously, it just isn't possible; it would be like nailing Jell-o to a tree, like Tracy leaving the house with her first outfit on, like Susan not farming on farmville, like me melting butter, like Sue leaving my house without stealing anything, like Chewy walking up to strangers and licking them, like Wendy saying no to a pair of shoes, like Autumn thinking she can draw cheese, like Dave walking out of Best Buy with nothing...I could go on, but I probably shouldn't. (Boy, that was fun!)

Ding (or would that be dong in past tense? HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I'm crying right now). The dreams were ready. And, yes, they were dreamy! Bet, you knew that was coming.

By the way, everybody loved them, and it was a wonderful night with a wonderful team, "The Bobkittens." "Absolutely," said James.

As it stands~
guests- 3
emotions- 1 (it was a Julia Child emotion= melted butter smell)
mistakes- 1
meltdowns- 0 (happy to report)
recipes- 1
recipes to date- 7

The Recipe~

1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup walnuts
8 oz package of cream cheese
1 egg
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup melted (hee hee) margarine (used butter)

Grease 8" by 8" square pan. In small bowl, mix brown sugar, flour and walnuts. Stir in butter until well combined. Reserve 1/3 cup crumbs. Pat remaining gently in pan. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven 12-15 minutes. In same bowl, at medium speed, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Beat in remaining ingredients. Pour over crust. Sprinkle remaining crumbs on top. Bake 25 minutes more. Cut into 2" squares and then cut diagonally in half.