Travel Along With Me

Hello! I am excited because I learned a new recipe that turned out well. My husband is a huge cheesecake fanatic and I found this recipe in a magazine (one of Martina McBride’s favorites). It is Lemon-Ginger Cheesecake.

For Crust:
2 cups of finely ground gingersnap cookies (I mixed half graham crackers and half cookies)
2 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
1/2 stick of unsalted butter (melted)

For Filling:
4 8oz packages of cream cheese (room temperature)
1 1/4 cups of sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup of sour cream
1/2 cup of whipping cream
1/2 cup of finely chop crystallized ginger (I did not use this - I grated some ginger root-about 1/2tsp)
2 tablespoons of peeled fresh ginger
2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
4 teaspoons of fresh lemon peel
several lemon slices to garnish

For Crust:
Preheat oven to 325.
Generously butter a 10-inch springform pan with 2 3/4-inch high sides.
Double wrap the outside of the pan with aluminum foil.
Blend ground cookies, sugar and ginger in processor. Add melted butter and process until moist crumbs form.
Press mixture onto the bottom and 1/2 inch up side of pan.
Bake until crust sets, about 10 minutes.
Cool and maintain oven temperature.

For Filling:
Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in sugar, scraping bowl occasionally. Add eggs one at a time, beating well. Beat in sour cream and whipping cream. Then put in crystallized ginger, fresh ginger, lemon juice and lemon peel. Poor filling into crust. Place springform pan in a roasting pan. Pour boiling water in roasting pan to come up 1 inch in pan. Bake cheesecake until filling is set and golden brown on top (cake may rise above edge of pan), about 1 hour and 25 minutes. Turn off oven and prop open oven door. Let cake set in oven for one hour. Cake will fall. Remove spring form pan from water and remove foil. Cool cheesecake completely on rack. Cover and regridgerate overnight. Release pan sides from cheesecake. Transfer cake to platter. Garnish with lemon slices and serve.

Enjoy!!

My friend Kim and her husband are looking for some land in West Virginia to have to camp and vacation on. She invited me to go with her this weekend to look at some property that she found on the internet.

We got up early on Friday morning and headed out. We rode in her car. The drive there is absolutely gorgeous. There are mountain views and farm land everywhere! We enjoyed the scenery and talked and talked as if we had not seen each other in years though we see each other everyday.

When we got to West Virginia we began using the directions she printed to find the properties. The towns were small that we drove through and there were long spans of road between stores and gas stations. We found the first property she printed fairly easily. Neither of us were impressed by it. We then found the next property without any trouble - it was not quite what they were looking for either. Once we left that property the real adventures began. We stopped at an old Thrift Store on our way to the next town. There was an interesting sign on their bathroom door that read: “No more than 5 minutes per person in the bathroom”. I found this funny!

We called her realtor to get directions for the next property and had to find places that are cell phones would actually have a signal to speak with him. We twisted up and down mountain roads (stopped to pee in the woods a couple of times since there were no stores around to use a bathroom).

We pulled into a rock driveway to see a house for sale and when we tried to turn around Kim’s car sunk into the mud. We got out and tried to rock the car back and forward to get it out of the mud with no luck. Then she pushed the car while I put it in reverse but that just dug us deeper into the mud. We found a country boy loading his truck at a nearby trailer and asked for his assistance. He tried to help us push the car out but that did not work so he brought his truck over to us and tried to put a chain on but it was too big. He then found some nylon rope and tied it to his truck and Kim’s car and was able to pull us out that way. The rope got so tight that he had to cut it off of Kim’s car (of course the country boy had a pocket knife in his pocket. He had on coveralls. The rope and chain was inside his truck. This country boy was prepared for us!) Kim got his name and address to send him a thank you card and we were on our way again.

We stopped at a monument and an overlook while driving around.

We got lost looking for the last property we were going to see for the day and Kim’s realtor said he would meet us to show us how to get there. Kim was not wanting to go look at this land because she was getting tired but I talked her into it. We found the realtor and followed him to the property. Kim was glad that we went. It ended up being a beautiful piece of land with a creek on it, trees and an old cabin). While we were touring this land Kim and I had to pee soooo bad and there was no where to go but the bushes again so Kim asked the realtor to walk around the land to give us some privacy “to pop a squat”. He laughed and went for a walk. We laughed and tried to do our business quickly before anyone saw us. It was hilarious!

The realtor wanted to take Kim to one more piece of land to see that day. We reluctantly agreed. It was a long drive there and Kim was disappointed with the land when we got there. We decided to call it a day.

We drove to Beckley and met Kim’s in-laws for supper. We then spent the night at their home that evening. Got up early the next morning and headed back home. We again enjoyed each other’s company. We talked about everything. It was a fun trip.