Chocolate Mint Cheesecake (Andes Mint or Tropical Source Mint LOL)

This is one that I knew would be requested for Christmas. It was requested at Thanksgiving. It took a bit of time to gather all the ingredients to make it "healthier" but certainly not healthy. It was amazingly yummy...and no preservatives or dye or such of any sort. It's still incredibly rich and you'd do well to start with a sliver. This is a recipe I came up with years ago and has repeatedly been shared on SHS but I couldn't find it on the blog this week when I thought the recipe was lost. ::snort:: So now it will be somewhere online that I can access easily. This cheesecake has earned the title the "400 lb cheesecake" and earned me the title of "cheesecake diva". Kelly in OH makes it very pretty by adding some dollops of whip cream along the bottom..... I still have an idea for a maple/honey cheesecake but I didn't want that many competing flavors in the chocolate one. I used Rapadura, which has a mild toffee flavor. Sucanat would work -sucanat is a bit grainier than Rapadura. The girls were suitably impressed - comments such as "I never knew organic could taste this good" flew around the table...along with my comments that this is a RARE treat these days. I also made an organic cheese ball so the girls are starting to realize I am not depriving the youngers with our lifestyle change. The favorites are still there...just adapted. ::snort::

Crust: *See note

1 1/2 C Oreos (about 22 - I used Newman O's)

2 T sugar (Rapadura)

1/4 C melted BUTTER

Mix. Press onto the bottom and up the side of a greased 9 inch spring form pan.*** Bake at 350* for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 325*. Set aside to cool.

Filling:

1/4 C Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips (Sunspire)

1/2 a pkg of Andes mints (1 1/2 - 2 bars Tropical Source Mint Crunch Dark Chocolate)

1/4 C Whipping Cream (NOT cool whip)

4 packages (80z) cream cheese, room temp (Organic Valley)

1 C sugar (Rapadura)

1/3 C baking cocoa (ahLaska!)

4 eggs

1 tsp pure vanilla

In a small bowl melt chocolate and mints (double boiler or microwave - stir every 30 seconds). Add 1/4 C whipping cream and stir until well blended. Set aside.

Beat cream cheese and rapadura on low speed until there are NO LUMPS. Add the baking cocoa and beat on low until blended. Add eggs and stir until blended. Add the reserved chocolate mixture and 1 tsp of vanilla and stir until blended. Pour into prepared spring form pan.

Bake for 45-50 minutes until center is almost set (small cracks begin to appear around the edges of the cheesecake) I do the water bath **** here so it takes about 10 - 20 minutes longer. Cheesecake is fine without the water bath if time is short.

Topping:

1 C Andes Mints (1 C Tropical Source Mint Crunch)

6 T butter (or Whipping Cream to thin)

Melt. Spread on cheesecake. Cool completely before covering in any way. Chill. Refrigerate overnight. Just before serving garnish with whipped cream if desired.

*We like a thicker crust so I use 3 C of cookie crumbs, 1/3 C of butter and 2 T of Rapadura for my 9 or 10 inch cakes. The sugar could be left out but I like the hint of crispness that it gives the crust.

**The second batch of chocolate mint can either be melted with the chocolate chips and incorporated into the topping (my favorite) or shaved over the top of the topping....or used to garnish before serving....but that makes for BIG bites of mints...

***I have used 9 or 10 inch pans...either work.

****To water bath or steam your cheese cake: Wrap the bottom and up the side of the pan in foil (I'll have to illustrate this as this is the most questioned step). Set the cheesecake in a pan big enough to hold the spring form pan. Pour boiling water 11/2 -2 inches up the side of the pan. Set the whole thing in the 3255* oven and continue. Water baths improve the texture of the cake and get rid of most of the cracks.....however when you top the cake it tastes wonderful and looks pretty either way.

NOT SURE WHY BLOGGER HATES PARAGRAPHS AND SPACES ::snort::

Radio Controlled Tarantulas...this gift was from Arielle and Nolan for Zander....

TRAMPOLINE

Here you go, Mike. If you can zoom in on the one of Arielle the expression is great. The other photos that show all three aren't so clear....but you can get a flavor of it with these photos. What a great thing for the big ones to do for the younger ones. Yes, they are all enjoying it.

Tuesday

Josiah is back to work.

Krista and Bre have had conversations with folks from Master's. They also organized everyone to play a game of Dominoes....and we watched a Samantha movie. Krista had taped 3 of the American Girl movies for Arielle for Christmas.

I dried apples, baked 4 loaves of bread and made dinner.

The youngers played all sorts of games, enjoyed the trampoline and had fun with the girls.

Krista figured out how to get CD's to load to the ipods.

Bre hooked up the card reader from the crashed computer to THIS computer. The reader on this computer seems to have gone out. When she did that for some STRANGE reason one of the color printers began to work. Who knows???? At one point she had the wireless mouse from the crashed computer controlling the screen on this computer...but that seems to have resolved itself.

ARGH....IE7 updated just fine on this computer but something went wrong when the other computer was upgrading and now we have Internet on ONE computer....I need to figure out how to blow the IE out and try it all over....but since we can't get online at all on that computer I have no idea how to download it. LOL Anyway - they can't go to the itunes store until we can get the computers to work well.

I typed some entries to post but the photos won't load, so I'll try tomorrow a.m.

That's the day in a nutshell.

Recipes: I realized how valuable it is to have favorite recipes on the blog when I couldn't find several I needed and had to copy them from the blog. ::snort:: Expect several in the next few days.

Menus:

Monday - Chicken Divan, Salad, fruit

Tuesday - Oven Fried chicken, oven fries, salad, carrot sticks, fruit

Wed - Beef Stroganoff, penne, salad, fruit salad, corn

Thursday - BBQ meatballs, rice, salad, fruit, oven baked sweet potato fries/fries

Friday - Pizza, salad, fruit

Saturday - Encore or Eat Out

Sunday - girls leave - most likely Encore Presentation and move our weekly eat out to Saturday.....

I CAN'T GET PHOTOS TO UPLOAD TONIGHT...JUST A WHINE! lol

Rocking Chair

Jamin and Jared bought me a rocking chair to match the one Mike bought me for Mother's Day. I'm excited to have matching chairs on the front "porch" and soon.....someone to rock with in the evenings.

Jamin spent the night assembling the rocking chair....

The Makeup Bandit

The girls are having to relearn survival in a big family techiniques....but Stacia is quick to return the things she borrows....{g}