Anyhow, I found the recipe here on one of my favorite recipe blogs, Smitten Kitchen.  It is a time consuming recipe, but it is not hard.  And if you are a chocolate lover, a brownie lover, or just a lover of delicious desserts, I guarantee you will love this cheesecake!!

Brownie Mosaic Cheesecake
Adapted wildly from A Piece of Cake, by Susan G. Purdy via Eat

Part One: One Bowl Brownies
Adapted from Baker’s One Bowl Brownies

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate (Baker’s chocolate, optional of course)
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter
1 3/4cups sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 13×9-inch baking pan with foil, with ends of foil extending over sides of pan. Grease foil.

Microwave chocolate and butter in large microwaveable bowl on high for 2 minutes, or until butter is melted. (Or heat on low on the stovetop to melt.)  Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in sugar. Blend in eggs and vanilla. Add flour and salt; mix well. Spread into prepared pan.

Bake 30 to 35 minute or until toothpick inserted in center comes out with fudgy crumbs. (Do not overbake.) Cool in pan on wire rack. Remove brownies from pan, using foil handles.

Cool brownies, then cut* them into 3/4- to 1-inch squares for use in the cheesecake. You will have more than the two cups of cubes, loosely measured, than you will need, and I’m sorry, you’re just going to have to decide for yourself what to do with the extra. Add cubes to cake batter as directed below.

* I find that brownies are fantastically easy to cut once they’ve been refrigerated–you end up with nice clean lines, and in this case, a sharp pizza wheel was especially helpful. Also, brownies taste better cold. I’m just saying.

Part Two: Crumb Crust
Adapted from Gourmet, 1999

I like a doubled crumb crust. I can’t get enough cookie. Below are proportions for one crust with the amounts to double the recipe in parentheses. You know you wanna.

1 1/2 cups or 5 ounces (3 cups or 10 ounces to double) finely ground cookies such as Newman’s Own Chocolate Sandwich Cookies. Or Annies Bunny Grahams.
5 tablespoons (10 tablespoons to double) unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup (2/3 cup to double) sugar
1/8 (1/4 teaspoon to double) teaspoon salt

Stir together crust ingredients and press onto bottom and 1 inch up side of a buttered 24-centimeter springform pan. Fill right away or chill up to 2 hours.

Part Three: Cheesecake
Adapted from the Three Cities of Spain Coffeehouse

3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar
2 cups brownie cubes (from recipe above)

Make crumb crust as directed above for 24-centimeter cheesecake. Preheat oven to 350°F.

Make filling and bake cake: Beat cream cheese with an electric mixer until fluffy and add eggs, 1 at a time, then vanilla and sugar, beating on low speed until each ingredient is incorporated and scraping down bowl between additions.

Fold brownie cubes in very gently and pour mixture into prepared pan. Put springform pan with crust in a shallow baking pan. Pour filling into crust and bake in baking pan (to catch drips) in middle of oven 45 minutes, or until cake is set 3 inches from edge but center is still slightly wobbly when pan is gently shaken.

When completely cool, top with following glaze.

Part Four: Ganache Glaze
Adapted from Purdy’s original recipe

3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, broken up, or 1/2 cup chocolate morsels
2 ounces butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon confectioners sugar

Grind the chocolate into powder in the food processor, scald the butter and cream in a saucepan (or in a Pyrex cup in the microwave). With the machine running, pour the hot cream/butter mixture slowly through the feed tube onto the chocolate. Blend until completely smooth, stopping machine to scrape down sides once or twice. Add the extract and sugar and process until smooth. Spread over cheesecake while ganache is still warm. Chill until ready to serve.

Zucchini Bread

6 eggs

2 c. oil (olive or coconut)

3 – 4 c. sugar

6 t. real vanilla extract

4 c. shredded zucchini

6 c. whole wheat pastry flour

2 t. salt

2 t. baking soda

3/4 t. baking powder

6 t. cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Beat the eggs in a large bowl until foamy.  Mix in the oil, sugar, zucchini and vanilla.  Add the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon.  Mix well.  Evenly pour the batter into 4 loaf pans that have been greased well.  Bake for 1 hour at 325 degrees.

So easy and so delicious!

Anyhow, I was uncertain what I would do with my garden cucumbers until I found a recipe for refrigerator pickles a few weeks ago.  No canning is required!  I made one batch of them and wow.  They are so good.  You can make them with cucumbers, zucchini, yellow crookneck squash, onions, peppers and probably so much more.  They are easy, they are cheap and my kiddos love them.

Jaden and I harvested 4 cucumbers today and decided to make more pickles.  Let me know if you try them yourself!

Refrigerator Pickles

1.5 c. distilled white vinegar OR apple cider vinegar

1/2 – 1 c. sugar

1 T. pickling salt OR kosher salt  (do not use regular table salt)

Sliced cucumbers (&/or combination of other veggies listed above)

1/8 t. mustard seed

1/8 t. celery seed

dash or two of turmeric

Heat the first 3 ingredients in a saucepan on the stove over medium high until the sugar dissolves, approx. 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, slice the veggies and fill a quart sized canning jar with them.  Add the spices to the jar.  When the liquid mixture is ready, pour it over the top of the veggies.  You can add more vinegar to the top if needed.  Put lid on the jar and set out on counter until cooled a bit.  Place jar in refrigerator for 5 days.  Now you can eat your yummy, crunchy pickles.

These pickles are supposed to keep for several months in the fridge and I’ve read that you can reheat the liquid mixture and reuse it to make another batch.  Anyone tried this?

I’ve finally discovered a recipe that our whole family loves.    It doesn’t require any kneading (don’t worry, I still use my kitchenaid at least twice per week!), it’s super easy, super cheap and super versatile.  I can make it into a simple rustic loaf, rolls, or into a sandwich loaf (which is the recipe below and our family’s favorite).   I can make it with a small amount of yeast (only 1/4 t. per loaf) or I can use a sourdough starter instead.   It’s so easy that the boys can make it.  And trust me when I tell you that it’s so delicious!

The basic recipe is simply called, No Knead Bread, adapted by Jim Lahey.  It appeared in an article in the NY Times several years ago.  This is the recipe that I use, but I adapt it to include whole wheat flour and usually make it into a loaf form instead, which requires less baking time.   I usually double the recipe to make 2 loaves at once.

Anna’s No Knead Sandwich Bread

Ingredients:

2 c. freshly ground whole wheat flour

1 c. unbleached white flour

1 t. salt

1/4 t. yeast  (or 1/4 c. sourdough starter)

1.5 c. filtered water

Directions:

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Add the water and stir well.  It will be very, very sticky.

Cover with saran wrap and set out of the way in a warm place in your kitchen for about 12 hours.  If you’ll be ready to bake within the next couple of hours, continue on to the next step.  Otherwise, you can stir the dough, re-cover it and leave it for up to another 12 hours.  (This is what I usually do because it works well with my schedule.  I mix up the dough in the morning, stir it before bed and then proceed with the following steps the next morning.  That way, we’ll have fresh bread for lunch.  Plus, the longer that the dough sets out, the more of a sourdough taste you’ll end up with and that is what we prefer.)

Now, sprinkle a lot of flour over a clean surface – I use a thin plastic cutting board from Ikea.   You can also use parchment paper, or even your kitchen counter.  The dough will be super sticky, so make sure you use plenty of flour on the surface.  Once it slowly plops out of the bowl, scrape the left-over dough out.  Then, sprinkle flour on top of the dough and pat it down with your hands.  Next, fold the dough from the left and right sides to the middle, and then fold again from the top and bottom to the middle.  Flip the loaf into a well greased loaf pan, seam side down.  Cover again with saran wrap and let it rise for 1-2 hours.

About 15 minutes before baking, preheat the over to 450 degrees.  Grease a knife and cut a slash in the top of the loaf – I usually forget this step and the bread still turns out fine!  Once the oven is ready, uncover the bread and place it in the oven and bake for 30 minutes.   When the bread is done, immediately take it out of the pan and leave it out to cool on a wire rack for at least an hour before cutting.

And that is our new favorite bread!  I’ve made it plain, with chocolate chips, with cinnamon and raisins, with herbs and cheese, with seeds… and it’s so good every single time.  You can use the same steps in the recipe to make rolls, or you can follow the original recipe to make a terrific rustic loaf instead.

I hope you like the recipe – let me know what you think of it!