Peanut Butter & Chocolate Cheesecake

The IT guy at Comcast is always baking yummy things and bringing them into work. Well he made this cheesecake yesterday and it was so good I thought I'd share. And I know, it's probably the least healthy thing you could eat but just ignore that minor detail.

3 cups cream cheese
¼ cup butter
2/3 cup sour cream
1 small jar creamy peanut butter
6 oz Dark Chocolate (60-72%)
¾ cup fine sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
3 egg yolks

Topping:
6 oz Dark chocolate (60-72%)
1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tbs dark corn syrup.

Two-Large Gram Cracker crust shells.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees

In a mixing bowl mix beat the cream cheese to soften (helps if you let sit at room temp for a bit too)
Add in the sugar and vanilla
Then the eggs 1 at a time
Then the egg yolks 1 at a time.
Then the sour cream
Add in the peanut butter.
Beat until fluffy
Put the stick of butter and the 6 oz of chocolate in a bowl and melt in the microwave. 1:15-1:30 on 50% power usually does the trick.
While the chocolate is still pourable add it in to the batter a little bit at a time!!!
The chocolate will be hot so you need to temper the mixture. If you throw it all in at once you risk curdling the eggs (chunky egg pieces in the cheese cake… yuck)
Pour evenly to the lip of the crusts.

Bake at 350 for 45min to an hour or until firm. A toothpick should come out clean.
Set aside to cool.
When cool to the touch, cover and refrigerate for at least a couple of hours (over night works best)

In the morning mix the chocolate, cream and syrup into a measuring cup and melt (as you did before)
Stir until fully mixed and rich brown!
Top both cakes with a layer and let sit to firm. You can put it back in the fridge or serve w/ warm chocolate sause.

Here are some random pix from the past month

We told her not to...

Bailey just doesn't listen. She was running on the couch, like she knows she's not supposed to do, and tripped somehow and smacked her face into a lamp and then the end table it was sitting on. She tried to put her bottom teeth through her lip! thank goodness she didn't. She just put some giant holes in her bottom lip and chipped a tooth. Of course I was at work so Stephen called me frantic becuase it wouldn't stop bleeding. I got home and an hour later it still was bleeding. So I took her to the ER and the doctor said he could stitch her up but it probably wouldn't heal much quicker and would just piss Bailey off so we left it alone and it's looking much better now. And you'd think that would teach her the lesson....oh no, she got right back on the couch and started running as soon as we got home.

It looks much better in these because this is later that afternoon.
But doesn't she have pretty eyes?

4th of July

We had a good 4th of July. It would have been great if we'd seen fireworks. Every place in Tucson started their fireworks either an hour early or an hour late because it was raining off and on that night. DUMB. So of course we didn't know what was going on and the fireworks were already over by the time we got out to Marana to see them. But during the day we had fun. We got a funky little sprinkler thing that Bailey and Makayla had fun running around in the water with. We had a bbq with some yummy chicken-apple brats-they're so good. That was about it.

Chickity check out the progress on our house

Happy Birthday to Me!

I turned an elderly 24 years old on the 13th. Ugh. I start to feel old and then I remember how much younger than Stephen I am and I feel much better. I had a great birthday. Stephen, the girls and I went out to Crapplebee's the night before on Saturday and I got some yummy slider burgers. YUM! Stephen got me a new 12" skillet to cook with that I love. It's a Rachel Ray one and it's way bett.....well let's just say it works a little better than my mom's pans. And, I got some yummy Good & Plenty and mint chocolate candies. YES!! My mom got me some sweet new sunglasses and Shelley got me a new laptop case. I have the best family. My mom made some steak stroganoff and we had some cookies n cream ice cream cake. So good. Now I'm hungry so I gotta go.
This is a picture of me when I was maybe 6 or 7-ish. I stole it off my lovely sister, Jana's, blog. She has all our old family pix so this is the only thing I could find to show off how cute I really am. I know you're jealous

Baptism Day!

The men on the big day
Shmandsome
My guys
Everyone that came

June 14th, 2008 - Ethan's big day! He was a little nervous and so was Stephen (even though you know he will never admit it). Ethan actually fell asleep during the baptism talk. I think 2 of my nephews did too-not that the talk super sucked but they'd just been playing hard all week before that. Stephen had to take a second before he could start the prayer and I don't know if that was because the Spirit was so strong or because he was fighting back tears. Or maybe a little of both. Anyway, they got through with only an almost forgotten "amen" and 1 dunk later Ethan was officially a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We are so proud of him. Stephen also confirmed him which was really cool. We went to Peter Piper afterwards and Ethan told me that he felt the Spirit really strong when he was talking to his aunt about his baptism. We got him his own scriptures with his name on it and a journal that he wrote in about his feelings on that day. He can't wait to start paying tithing and even wants to FAST! The poor kid has no idea. My niece, Makayla, had been feeling sick and he told me that if she didn't feel better the next day that we should have a fast for her. He is such a cool kid and we couldn't be happier about his decision to be baptized.