Paula Deen Strikes Again (Pumpkin Cheesecake)

Paula Deen is a superhero if her arteries can withstand her own food. For another professor dinner we made a pumpkin cheese cake. After the recipe, stick around and read a little public service announcement.

Our version, with fresh raspberries!

Ingredients

Crust:

1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs

3 tablespoons light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 stick melted salted butter

Filling:

3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature

1 (15-ounce) can pureed pumpkin

3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk

1/4 cup sour cream

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

2 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. For crust: In medium bowl, combine crumbs, sugar and cinnamon. Add melted butter. Press down flat into a 9-inch springform pan. Set aside.

For filling: Beat cream cheese until smooth. Add pumpkin puree, eggs, egg yolk, sour cream, sugar and the spices. Add flour and vanilla. Beat together until well combined. Pour into crust. Spread out evenly and place oven for 1 hour. Remove from the oven and let sit for 15 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4 hours.

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I feel sort of bad that I keep posting Paula Deen recipes, since they guarantee eventual diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. So here's a free public service announcement for the Let's Move Campaign.

"The physical and emotional health of an entire generation and the economic health and security of our nation is at stake." - First Lady Michelle Obama at the Let’s Move! launch on February 9, 2010

Obesity by the numbers

Over the past three decades, childhood obesity rates in America have tripled, and today, nearly one in three children in America are overweight or obese. One third of all children born in 2000 or later will suffer from diabetes at some point in their lives; many others will face chronic obesity-related health problems like heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, and asthma.

How did we get here?

Thirty years ago, most people led lives that kept them at a pretty healthy weight. Kids walked to and from school every day, ran around at recess, participated in gym class, and played for hours after school before dinner. Meals were home-cooked with reasonable portion sizes and there was always a vegetable on the plate. Eating fast food was rare and snacking between meals was an occasional treat.

Kids today lead a very different kind of life. Walks to and from school have been replaced by car and bus rides. Gym class and school sports have been cut and are often replaced now by afternoons with TV, video games, and the internet. Parents are busier than ever and families eat fewer home-cooked meals. Snacking between meals is the norm, not the exception.

While kids thirty years ago ate just one snack a day, they are now trending toward three–so they’re taking in an additional 200 calories a day just from snacks. And one in five school-age kids has up to six snacks a day.

Portion sizes have also exploded. Food portions are two to five times bigger than they used to be. Beverage portions have grown as well. In the mid-1970s, average sweetened drink portions were 13.6 ounces. Today, kids think nothing of drinking 20 ounces of soda at a time. In total, we are now eating 31 percent more calories than we were forty years ago–including 56 percent more fats and oils and 14 percent more sugars and sweeteners. The average American now eats fifteen more pounds of sugar a year than in 1970.

And the average American child spends more than 7.5 hours a day watching TV and movies, using cell phones and computers for entertainment, and playing video games, and only a third of high school students get the recommended levels of physical activity.

That’s the bad news. The good news is by making a few simple changes we can help our kids lead healthier lives–and we already have all of the tools we need to do it. We just need the will.

So eat Paula Deen's recipes sparingly.

21 Dangerous & Deadly Dishes

Here is a nice list of interestin­g and exotic dishes from Huffington Post!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Crunch Top Apple Pie

Paula Deen makes the healthiest meals:

"Alright y'all, now you add the butter!" 

"I want a room deodorizer that smells like butter and bacon."

My roommate discovered this recipe in the fall. We got to work and pumped out a delicious apple pie in time for dinner with our professor part deux. Here it is:

Ingredients:
Dough and Filling:
Dough for a double crust 9-inch pie (homemade, frozen, or refrigerated)
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Dash salt
3 1/2 cups peeled, chopped cooking apples
1 (16-ounce) jar applesauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons butter, chopped into small pieces

Crunch Topping:
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
Dash salt
1 tablespoon butter, at room temperature

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. The dough you have to make or buy yourself. It's not a part of this recipe. Sorry! Paula Dean fail. Line a 9-inch pie pan with half of dough. Combine sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl. Stir in apples, applesauce, and lemon juice. Spoon apple mixture into pie pan and dot with butter. Cut remaining crust into strips; arrange in a lattice design over top of pie. For crunch topping, combine flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Using a fork, cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle over top of crust. Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees F and continue to bake for about 45 minutes, or until crust and topping are golden brown.


Serve the pie with some vanilla ice cream for added fun and heart attack.

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China Comes over for Dinner

Saw this article on Huffington Post. Figured it was relevant. President Hu Jintao of China is in Washington DC today attending a State Dinner. Earlier today Jintao stated that "China is enduring challenges as it develops and 'a lot still needs to be done in China in terms of human rights.'" He also said "China stood to gain from other countries' input, saying: 'We're also willing to learn.'" This just proves that food improves global relations.  Below is the dinner menu for that event. But with all due respect to the White House (and I am confident that the meals are delicious and gourmet), we've cooked more courses for our professors.

First

D'Anjou Pear with Farmstead Goat Cheese Fennel, Black Walnuts, and White Balsamic

Second

Poached Maine Lobster

Orange Glaze Carrots and Black Trumpet Mushrooms

Wine: DuMol Chardonnay "Russian River" 2008 (California)

Lemon Sorbet

Main

Dry Aged Rib Eye with Buttermilk Crisp Onions

Double Stuffed Potatoes and Creamed Spinach

Wine: Quilceda Creek Cabernet "Columbia Valley" 2005 (Washington State)

Dessert

Old Fashioned Apple Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream

Wine: Poet's Leap Riesling "Botrytis" 2008 (Washington State)

Presentation, presentation, presentation

I think I will make it fairly obvious fairly soon that I am a stickler for presentation. Here, we made a simple arrangement of pineapple and mango, cut into cubes and rectangles. A simple fruit dessert made pretty by contrasting red mango peel and a vibrant green pineapple leaves rising from the middle. 

Simple made sexy. 

And in the event that eating pineapple is not enough, go out and win MegaMillions and live in a giant pineapple house in Dunmore, Scotland. 

Crunch Walnut Risotto

We took a page from one of our small cookbooks this weekend and experimented with a crunchy walnut risotto. Of course, like any aspiring chef professors/lawyers we diverged from the recipe in several areas.

The original recipe requires the following:

1 tbsp olive oil

2 1/2 oz butter

1 small onion, finely chopped

10 oz Arborio rice

40 fl oz simmering vegetable stock

4 oz walnut halves

3 oz freshly grated Parmesan

2 oz Mascarpone cheese

2 oz Gorgonzola cheese

Here's our method, with the ingredients we used and/or substituted. We heated the oil with a bit of butter and sauteed the onions until golden. Separately the rice was cooked in a Persian rice cooker (2 cups rice, 3 cups water, 1/4 cup cooking oil) for approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes. We lined the bottom of the rice cooker with sliced potatoes to make Tadiq. Instead of Arborio rice, we used long-grain white Basmati rice (rinse first!).

Persian rice cooker

On the stove the sauteed onions are mixed with toasted walnuts (and we added sliced almonds). In another bowl we mixed gorgonzola cheese with parmesan and added paprika, salt, and pepper. When the rice is done cooking we flipped it out of the cooker, took off the crunchy potato bottom to eat separately and mixed in the onions, walnut, almond mixture and the cheese and spices mixture with some butter.

Turned out great! Hope it does for you. Let us know!