Monday, February 2, 2009

February what?!?

I have been told that as you age, time goes faster. I do remember time going so S-L-O-W-L-Y when I was little. Christmas took forever to get here, Summer vacation just went on forever, the days were longer...but I'm not old and time is FLYING! Seriously, it's been what, 33 days, since we brought in the New Year and I still haven't actually written down my resolutions. By now I usually have written them down, started them and broken them, therefore canning all future resolutions and gotten on living my life. Well, welcome to February 2009...wow!

My husband is a choco-holic. I kid you not, if he could get an IV with chocolate he'd be completely satisfied. I think his mom ate a little too much chocolate while pregnant. That being said, he's very easy to please with desserts. For Valentine's day I try to make him a special dinner, you know all his favorites. He loves lasagna, he loves bread, and he loves chocolate and sweets...voila! Chocolate cheesecake. To be completely honest, for people like me who could easily live without chocolate, it's a little rich. But Shane loves it, so Happy Valentines Day to him!

CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE

18 Chocolate Sandwich cookies, finely crushed (about 1 1/2 cups)
2 tbsp. butter or margarine, melted

3 pkg. (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened
3/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 pkg. (8 squares) Semi-sweet baking chocolate, melted, cooled slightly
(I usually use the equivalent of cocoa and oil, listed on cocoa container)
3 eggs

Preheat oven to 325° if using a silver 9 inch springform pan (300° if using a dark nonstick 9 inch springform pan). Mix crushed cookies and butter; press firmly onto bottom of pan and bake for 5 minutes.

Beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add melted chocolate; mix well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition just until blended. Pour over crust.

Bake 55 minutes to 1 hour or until center is almost set. Turn off oven and leave cheesecake in oven for 1 hour. Run knife around side of pan to loosen cake. Cool cake completely before removing side of pan. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight. Store in refrigerator.

Before serving I usually sprinkle cocoa and powdered sugar over the top of the cake.

2 comments:

Karen S. said...

I am responding to your post about needing new recipes. I've come to the conclusion that I need more crockpot recipes. I stumbled upon a blog http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ that post a new slow cooker recipe everyday. If you try any and they turn out good you should post them so I know I can make it too. =)

Karen S. said...

I got it... "Slow-cooker Sundays". Ok, I'm waiting..