Thursday, November 8, 2007

Day 8
Number of Recipes Collected: 3

I received my first snail mail recipe! Thank you to Chris’s sister, Leigh Ann! You made me very happy (really more like giddy in a Christmas morning kind of way) when I went and checked my mailbox on Tuesday night. I called everyone I could think of to share the good news.

For anyone who reads this and wants to get me something for Christmas…I need a new spring form pan (you’ll understand this when you read Leigh Ann’s recipe). I threw my old one out several years ago, after I discovered it had rusted. That shows how much I used it.

Mom’s Almond Cheesecake
Recipe #2: Leigh Ann, Simpsonville, S.C.

Crust:
1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs
2 Tbs sugar
1 tsp flour
¼ cup melted butter

Filling:
2 lbs. cream cheese (softened)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
½ tsp vanilla
½ tsp almond extract

Topping:
1 pint sour cream
¾ cup sugar
¾ tsp almond extract
½ tsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix ingredients for crust, pat down on bottom of 9” spring form pan. Bake crust 5 minutes, remove and cool. Turn OFF oven, open door to allow oven to cool.

Mix filling, pour into cooled crust and place in cold oven. (The time it takes to mix the filling is enough time to let the oven cool.) Turn oven to 350 degrees and bake for 30 minutes. Pour topping over baked cheesecake and bake for 8 more minutes. Chill overnight.

Yesterday at lunch I was advertising this little project to some folks in the lunchroom at work. I might have dressed it up a bit with my ambitions of putting the collection of recipes I receive into a cookbook and maybe getting a book deal to write about my experience with the project (think Julie & Julia) and then added my hopes of maybe, possibly, one day being asked by the Food Network to make this into a show!

Anyway, before I knew it, another recipe had appeared. This one was dropped off on my desk when I was off making photocopies. I know Katherine knows that I love soups and chowders, and that I grew up in Maine. This one sounds perfect for me!

DDDDD Seafood Chowder
Recipe #3: Katherine F., Atlanta, GA.
(In case you’re wondering, the 5 D’s stand for the Double Digit Division Dining Divas.)

Ingredients:
6 Tbs butter
4 Tbs flour
1 large onion
2 stalks celery
1 red pepper
6 cups hot chicken stock
2 cups ½ and ½
fresh dill or chervil
2 ½ cups milk
black pepper
salt
4 cups corn
8 oz smoked salmon
12 oz crabmeat

Melt the butter in a soup pot. Add chopped onion, celery, and red pepper. Saute for 10 minutes on medium. Add flour, stir for 2 minutes. Add chicken stock and bring back to simmer. Add cream, milk, salt and pepper to taste. Bring back to a simmer and add corn.

Remove pot from heat and add salmon and crabmeat. Pour into bowls and sprinkle with fresh dill or chervil. Makes 12 servings.

Katherine wrote on the recipe, “I’ve made this also with oysters instead of smoked salmon, and it’s very good.”