A Special Treat

I have been longing for some of this cheesecake for ages but couldn't quite bring myself to make one when I didn't have anyone coming to dinner to share it with. While I probably could manage to eat the whole thing (over a few days!) I thought it wasn't the wisest idea. And while I did have people I could invite to dinner trying to find a date that suited everyone, and their kids activities, was near impossible. Finally on Saturday we managed to tee up a date with some friends and I got to make what I think is just about the yummiest cheesecake ever!

White Chocolate Cheesecake
From the Ugly Binder



185g (1½ cups) crushed plain chocolate biscuits
90g butter, melted
500g cream cheese, softened
400g can sweetened condensed milk
200g white chocolate, melted
300ml carton cream
1 tbsp gelatine
¼ cup boiling water
100g dark chocolate, melted

Combine biscuite crumbs and butter. Press into base of 23cm springform pan and refrigerate until firm
Beat cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk until smooth. Beat in white chocolate, then beat in cream.
Combine gelatine and boilng water, stir until dissolved. Beat gelatine into cheesecake milture and spoon over crumb crust.
Swirl dark chocolate through cheesecake mixture and refrigerate until firm.

I used chocolate chip fudge cookies for the base this time round. I have experimented with lots of different types and this is definitely my favourite. I usually make this the night before I need it so it is nice and firm when it's time to serve it up. Hope you like it. Here at the House of Red Dirt it's a firm favourite.

An early birthday gift

I received an early birthday present this week. It's not my birthday for a couple of weeks but my friend, D, was leaving town and she gave me a birthday/goodbye/sorry-we're-leaving gift. It's a cookie jar in the shape of a cup-cake. I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!! My old cookie jar was dented and ugly and I said to D a couple of weeks ago that I needed to get another one. She said that was the only clue she needed LOL.

The very gorgeous cup-cake cookie jar

And here is a pic of the cookie-mix-in-a-jar gifts that we made for #1's kindy teachers. As usual, not a great shot, but you get the idea.

Today I was out scrapbooking all day and got a few pages of #2's baby album done. I'm pleased that I finally managed to get her first photos scrapped, especially as she is 15 months old now! Here are some pics of what I got done. I forgot my 'special' pen so they still need the journalling to be done but you get the general idea.

We were out to dinner last night and I made one of my favourite desserts - white chocolate cheesecake. I'll be back tomorrow with pics and the recipe.

Teacher's Gifts

Tomorrow is the last day of kindy for Offspring #1. What a big milestone. He seems pretty cool with the whole idea but a certain Mummy is feeling a bit sad and sorry! We made Cookie-Mix-In-A-Jar for #1's two teachers for their Christmas gifts. I think they turned out pretty well. We did a test run last week and made a batch of cookies (they are Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies) to see how they turned out and were quietly pleased with them. The main thing I wanted, besides them being tasty, was for the recipients to not have to add too many other ingredients or follow long and complicated steps. Anyway, I got the recipe from a site called Gifts From Your Kitchen that is well worth checking out - lots of yummy recipes to try.

I have tried to post pics of the finished gifts but someone (ie the Hubby!) changed the settings on my camera so the photos are huge and I'm not sure how to make 'em smaller so Blogger will be happy with them.I'll get him to fix them up and post them later.

Snicker-who?

I realise it has been awhile since I did a food post so thought I'd best get myself into action. To be honest I haven't been cooking anything terribley exciting, I have been making proper meals and all but they have tended to be family favourites, like spag bol, tuna mornay or lamb cutlets that I have fine-tuned and tweaked to our tastes and don't follow a recipe for anyway. Late last week #1 and I felt like some cookies so had a search through the ugly binder and came across a recipe I had been wanting to try for some time - Snickerdoodles! Yes, I admit it was mostly the name that intrigued me but also everytime someone had spoken of these cookies they told me how much they loved them so of course I wanted to try them too. They are super easy, super crunchy and super yummy! I really loved them dunked in a cup of tea while #1 enjoyed them with a glass of cold milk. The day we made them I was cruising through a number of blogs I read regularly and realised that Ellie, the Kitchen Wench, had made snickerdoodles the same day. Her recipe is a little different to the one I had and I'll be trying hers next time. I also realised that I had taken the same type of photo (although her photo is, as always, terrific and mine is ummm... not) but since we had given half the cookies away to a friend and eaten a large number of the remaining ones I couldn't take another pic. Oh well!!

Snickerdoodles
from The Ugly Binder




150g butter
1 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1¾ cups self-raising flour

rolling mix of ½ cup cinnamon scented caster sugar (or ½ cup caster sugar mixed with 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon)


Preheat oven to 225˚C. Cream butter and sugar together in a bowl, mix in the egg then the flour. Take teaspoons of the mixture and roll into a ball then roll it in the cinnamon sugar rolling mix until it's well covered.

Place each snickerdoodle on a greased tray, leaving room for spreading. Press slightly flat and bake for about 10 minutes or until they are just turning golden at the edges. Remove from oven and leave cookies to cool on tray. They will be quite soft but will turn crisp as they cool.



Makes about 30.

PS I haven't had any comments for ages. Is anyone reading this? Please say hi if you've dropped by, even if you don't normally comment. You can even be anonymous if you want LOL.

A Concert Report

Well the end-of-year concert was a fabulous success! The kindy kids were so very cute - the boys were in surfie shirts and boardshorts or surfie-style shorts and most of the girls wore their swimmers and pretty coloured grass skirts. #1 did a terrific job of remembering the dance - I guess the other kids did too but I wasn't watching them LOL! He danced his little heart out and you should have seen the wiggle when he did "the schnorkel" AKA the snorkel, where they hold their nose and pretend they are under water. Apart from jumping to face the wrong way one time (at least he wasn't the only one and it didn't faze him in the least!) he remembered it all and as you can tell, we were very proud of him.

My beautiful boy all dressed up in his surfie gear

He has come such a long way this year and is so much more confident than he was even 5 months ago. I was so worried that the move to Red Dirt Central would be really hard for him because he was/is such a sensitive little soul who feels things so deeply, but I think it might have just been the best thing for him. He loves kindy and waves me goodbye quite happily every morning. He still misses his friends at home, especially his 'bestest friend' who lived across the road, but has made some new friends easily. That said, he is going to a different school again next year. The new one is closer to our house and I am also far happier with it educationally. I went to collect his book order during the week and got the chance to have a good look around and it is just so much better/nicer/newer/cleaner than his current school. It does help ease the mummy-guilt that most of his kindy class are disbursing and heading off to different schools and that there will be 2 or 3 of his class-mates at the new school with him. But with the growth I have seen in him this year I am more confident that we are doing the right thing for him and that he will cope well with yet another change.