Watermelon Cheesecake

My friend Jack recently sold his house, and once again, is hosting a dinner party Saturday night. Despite my enjoyment of regular cooking, I seen to be the only one who enjoys and is (I think) good at desserts. With the weather as ridiculously hot as it is, I was going to go with a cool, fruit dessert. I wasn’t in the mood to go shopping, despite the air conditioned grocery store. I looked in my fridge and found watermelon and cream cheese. Looking in my pantry revealed graham cracker crumbs and chocolate. I had an idea, watermelon cheesecake.

Disclaimer: I made up this recipe as I went along, so I have no measurements. I will try my best to estimate.

Start with the standard graham cracker crumb crust. Melt butter and mix it with the crumb, press into the bottom of a greased pie pan.

Cut up a fourth of a large watermelon. Take out the seeds, put into a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. Put through sifter, cheese cloth, etc. Put the juice in a pan, add a couple pinches of salt, and ¼ cup sugar, put on high heat and reduce until it becomes a syrup. Don’t worry if the liquid looks like its separating.

In a food processor or a mixer, put in 8oz of cream cheese, 2 eggs, pinch of salt. I added tequila rose (a strawberry cream liquor) and some melted strawberry jam, but some strawberry milk, or an extract would work as well. Add the watermelon syrup, but reserve about ¼ cup. Mix all ingredients and put in the pie crust.

Bake the pie at 350 for 1 hour or until center is solid. I put a bowl of water in the bottom to prevent cracking. After the cake has cooled, coat the top with the remaining syrup for a bright red finish. I added chocolate chips as ‘seeds’ for a fun look.

As of this writing, I have not presented it at the party, but it looks great and the ‘batter’ tasted wonderful. I will let you know how it goes.

Plumpy’s Pierogies @ Quinn’s

Last Saturday, Quinn’s market in Archibald had a weekend long event entitled “Come Sale Away.” This event included free samples from various vendors, performances by local children’s dance studios, local bands, and most pertinent to me, a pierogie eating contest.

            Worried that there would be a limit to the number of entrants, I arrived early on the warm, sunny, Saturday morning. The first one there, I was dismayed when I learned there had been a wing eating competition the night before sponsored by Quaker Steak and Lube. The challenge had consisted of eight wings and two minutes. The wings must be cleaned to the bone, including gristle. The owner a Plumpy’s pierogies was the winner, taking home a $25 Quinn’s gift card and another gift card for Quaker Steak and Lube.

            Saturday’s festivities were attended by 11 competitors. About three times as many spectators gathered around to watch us stuff our faces. For any of you who don’t know, a pierogie is a “boiled, baked or fried dumpling of unleavened dough traditionally stuffed with potato filling, sauerkraut, ground meat, cheese, or fruit. Of central and eastern European provenance, they are usually semicircular, but are rectangular or triangular in some cuisines” (Wikipedia). These happened to be filled with potato, as is most common in the Northeast PA area, and were deep fried. This presented a different challenge than the sautéed with butter and onion variety.

The crispy, deep fried kind requires a different strategy. They are dry, soaking up the saliva in your mouth, making you unable to swallow them. I address this issue two ways. The first was dumping water over them (they were served in a tray) just as I received them. This only partially worked, as I was eating them so fast, the pierogies did not have time to soak up the water. To combat this, I had to mash the dumplings with my hand before stuffing my face. This also reduced the amount I had to chew before I could swallow. As with all speed eating, I had extra water standing by, as my natural liquid was insufficient to choke (literally) down the potato and dough.

We had three minutes to consume as many as we could. Plates of eight were set in front of us, with additional plates of five were standing by. For a grueling three minutes, I soaked, mashed, chewed, choked, and swallowed 20.5 of the potato-filled dumplings, beating out the other 10 gluttons. With my gift card in hand, pictures were taken and are apparently up on the Toyota Scranton Facebook page, though I was unable to locate it.

Weekend in Long Island

A friend of mine, Dan, will be moving to Florida soon. We were watching a movie Thursday night when he, offhandedly, asked if I wanted to go to Long Island with him and his friend, Kim, for the weekend. Having little else planned, and knowing that a weekend away is always a good time, I took him up on the offer. Saturday was spent at the beach, but the feast that we cooked that night was glorious,

Dan and I are carnivores to the core, so the on sale t-bone steaks were our choices. Kim however, elected for the shrimp. However, since the steaks came in a 3 pack, it was surf and turf for us. A bunch of veggies and some drinks meant kabobs for all.

Now I realize that kabobs are by no means a culinary exploration, but the marinade and grilling expertise was what separated this from the usual. The veggies, prior to being skewered were put in a pot along with balsamic vinegar, sugar, olive oil, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic power, red pepper flakes, paprika, and sun dried tomato flakes. Mixing these by hand, Dan and I soon had a tray full of veggie kabobs. The shrimp was done simply being mixed with old bay prior to being impaled.

As for the steaks, it would have been a sin had we stripped away the meat from the flavorful bone prior to grilling. Both sides of the steak were seasoned with salt, pepper, onion and garlic powders, and sat, waiting for the grill.

First thing was first, veggies have to go on. Here is a little tip with any kabob making endeavor: mix and match any veggies on a skewer, and keep all the meet skewers separate. Chicken takes far longer to cook than steak or shrimp. Don’t turn your veggies into charcoal with just done chicken, or have pink-in-the-center chicken with perfect veggies.

With the veggie kabobs complete, chicken and shrimp went on. With nice and crispy ends, just slightly charred, they were removed and the lid went back down, re-heating for the steak. Another tip with grilling steak: Get your grill as hot as it will go BEFORE putting the steak on. We are talking 500 degrees here. Sufficiently hot, the steak went on. Five minutes for one side. Resist temptation to peak, flip, move, or touch the steaks. Keep the lid on and let them be. Fail to do this, and the steak will not develop those signature grill marks. Flipped once, and another four minutes on the grill. Steaks come off, and I let them rest for 5 min underneath tin foil. Why? When steaks come right off the grill, the protein molecules are still to jumbled and moving. Cutting into a steak now would make all of the juices run out, and the steak’s flavor with it. Let it rest for five minutes under foil, and you will be rewarded with juicy steak.

The next day, we headed to a party at Dan’s sister’s house. Wouldn’t you know it, they had kabobs! This time, we had no steak but instead had chicken and swordfish. Me being the foodie I am, I couldn’t wait to get into the kitchen and help. Showing my deftness, I soon was delegated head chef. As before, veggies went on medium heat first. After two whole grills full of vegetation, I turned to the chicken, again giving it a nice char on the end. This required flipping both top to bottom and side to side. The beauty though, was in the swordfish. As with any steak (or steak fish), cooking any further than medium is an insult to the ingredient. After removing all other items, I again let the grill re-heat. The cubes of skewered swordfish sat on one side for four minutes before their single flip. Another three minutes and seared medium swordfish were on the table.

I wonderful meal was enjoyed by all and for the three hour car ride home (most of which I slept through) I am sure I stand up the car with my masculine scent of the grill.

Happy Fourth of July Everyone!