May Celebrations

Our first celebration of the month was for Blair's birthday. Since he had scheduled an ASE test on his birthday, we decided to celebrate the day after. He had a gift card to a steak house, so we decided to use that for dinner and I asked what kind of cake and he said, "I want one of those New York style, thick, dense, really tasty cheesecakes." Okay, I thought, I've never attempted a baked cheesecake, but I'm sure it's no big deal. Well, I poured over recipes and tried to determine which one looked the easiest and the tastiest. I picked a Lion House version, (it should be good right? It's the Lion House for heaven's sake!) and it called for a spring form pan. Well, the only spring form pan I own is a heart shape. But, who cares, right? I mean, I do LOVE Blair, so I though it would be just great. I was a little frightened when I read the ingredients and realized just how much cream cheese and sour cream (for the topping) was required. My internal caloric calculator was thinking "overload! overload!" I thought, "I'm sure I can slim this down and no one will ever notice." So, I opted for the lowest fat cream cheese and fat free sour cream. I mixed it up and put it in the oven. However, I accidentally hit the clear button on the timer after it had been in there a while and I had no idea how much time was left, so I just sort of guestimated. Surprisingly, the cheesecake did not turn out as planned! There must be a reason you use full fat ingredients and cook it for a specified time. Oops. Well, when I tried to remove it from the pan, the two heart shaped humps fell right off and there was a big crack down the middle. Since Blair had invited the Elder's Quorum president and his wife over to have some cake and celebrate with us, I panicked. I tried to cut off the top and bottom to make it look like a square cheesecake, but since it was under cooked, it ended up looking like I had eaten all the edges. Oh dear. Well, the pictures speak for themselves. Lesson learned: Just ignore the caloric calculator and follow the recipe!

The elegant cheesecake, beautifully displayed on a platter.

The pieces I cut off in an attempt to make it a little more symmetrical.

MOTHER'S DAY

I am embarrassed to even put these pics on the blog for all to see, but I did have such a great breakfast prepared for me on Mother's Day by two sweet boys. This is my best "just rolled out of bed smile."

This is the card I got from Will and the earrings are from Blair. How nice!