21.04.10 - 'Appy birfday Ma-am, 52 things and ouch

Life potters on, the boys are back at school after their spring-break. Himself is back at work and I am still there!

It's difficult to juggle having time off during school breaks when we both work. Luckily we both have hours that means we can time share them during holidays and we are also blessed with a safety 'Granny-net'. My folks take the boys and spoil them rotten - but I suppose that is part of the job description when you sign up to be a grandparent.

***A fictional account of a grandie-care job interview***

• Got to be able to cook sticky buns/cheese toasties/chocolate cake with the grandies and not mind (too much) about the amount of icing/cheese/flour on the floor (or on the table top/the child/the cat/the carpet etc)...........check
• Got to be able to take the grandies to a tea room and let them choose something inappropriate off the menu (then gently persuade them successfully otherwise)...............check
• Got to be able to play tennis/chess/majong/dominoes/cards or all of the above at the same time...........check
• Got to be able to watch DVD and videos that they don't really find all that interesting (Transformers/cartoons/Bananas in pjs) and then be able to watch them again and again and again........check
• Got be there for grazed knees/sore throats/hiccups and other general snotty noses and off school ailments...........check (a reluctant one but still a check)
• Got to be able to do all of the above and then some.............check

Good - then the job is yours!

*******************************

On the continuing quest of....... 52 things that I have not cooked before, here are 2 more.

New York tall cheesecake (called the 3-day-cheesecake in our house) - sinful sinful sinful but oh so yummmmmmmmm.

When I first saw the pictures on the smitten kitchen blog I decided I would give it a try and quickly skimmed through the ingredients and thought - hmmm, next time we went shopping I would get the goodies. Maybe I should have done less skimming and more reading.....but never mind, I wrote down the ingredients down all inspired and ready to create. Himself, having seen the pictures, began to have fantasies about the cheesecake and was very encouraging.....

Did I mention the yum word?

In the supermarket, I tried to translate the American measurements to metric and was getting horribly confused. So Himself manfully stepped in (especially as he could see his cheesecake - as he was now thinking of it - was not going to appear). He converted the amounts and we decided that they were of huge (HUGE!!) proportions and we halved them.

Yumm (oops may have said that before...)

Anyway, after shopping (which we do in the evenings after work), I made the crumb base, which when I printed off the recipe and actually-read-it said the base had been chilled in the freezer, to speed up the making. Well, we'd just been shopping and the freezer was full, so it went into the fridge and I postponed it till the morning (you should have seen Himself's face, all hope was lost....)

The next evening - after work, which had been a late night surgery, I started the 'cheese' part, once again I had missed a crucial piece of information in the initial skimming of the recipe - it needed to cook for an hour after the initial 12 minutes - which was the only bit of timing I'd spotted - once again Himself was crestfallen when, at 11.15pm I took out the cheesecake and put it aside to cool.

It will be worth the wait, I told him.

I can't really repeat what he muttered under his breath - I pretended I hadn't heard!

So, last night, again after work and after cubs, so yes, late again, I putting the topping on and we all sat down and we had......a.......piece....of.....cheesecake....... aaaaaah yum. 

So - was it worth it? Well yes, but it is quite rich and I didn't make the full proportions and I did leave out the sugar in the biscuit base, it seemed unneccessary to add to an already sweetened base more sugar.

Will I make it again?

Yes

Only, I will try and start it earlier so that we don't wait three days for it!!

*******************************

Ouch

Over the weekend we went for a walk as mentioned in this post here, resulting in Eldest hurting his knee and leaving a small part of it forever high up on a hillside.

Though I'd share the rather colourful details of his peacock coloured knee.....

A couple of hours after the knee/rock/blood everywhere moment.

The next day when the bruising started to show,

some of that grey stuff is the sticky left over from a plaster,

but I am not allowed to go near to get it off!

 'Too painful' howls Eldest.

***********************************

And - before I forget - it's the Queen's birthday today.