Brownie Caramel Cheesecake

There's not really a backstory for this recipe.  Twenty or so years ago I thought I'd subscribe to one of those menu clubs.  You know them... Pay x amount of dollars and receive a dozen recipe cards to go in the bulky unwieldy large couldn't find a place for it  handy complimentary cheap plastic beautiful acrylic file box behind the confusing appropriate tabs.  You could have an entire year of expensive meals and non-kid-friendly desserts taking up a whole corner of the counter at your fingertips!  After three months I cancelled the subscription.  The plastic box became storage for Lego pirate weapons.  I did keep one recipe, though, and have made it for us through the years:  Brownie Caramel Cheesecake.

The pecan crust recipe comes from Brother #3.  I think he got it from Emeril but I wouldn't swear to it.  I use roasted pecans in everything but pecan pies.  Roasting brings out their nutty flavor and keeps them from getting soggy too quickly in cakes and salads.

Pecan Crust
2 cups all purpose flour
2 sticks butter
2 cups chopped pecans
1/2 teaspoon salt (strictly optional - I never use it)

Preheat oven to 450.  Mix flour, salt, and butter until consistency of cornmeal.  Add ground or finely chopped pecans.  Press mixture firmly in bottom and two inches up sides of a nine inch springform pan.  Bake for ten minutes until golden brown.

Now that's what the instructions say do.  You can certainly get cornmeal texture if the butter is cold.  I'd forgotten to leave the butter cold, having icing in mind this afternoon.  Does it make a difference if it's cold or not?  Not in this crust.

See?  All nice and mixed together and I didn't even get

the pastry knife thingy dirty!

I've discovered over the years to NOT start on the bottom

of the springform pan and then up the sides.  I start on the

sides, making them artfully not level all the way around.

And then I press the crust into the bottom.  This is a ten inch pan, 

by the way.  The recipe says nine inch but you'll regret using it.

And do yourself a favor and put the springform pan on or in 

something else.  Butter has a way of cooking out of the crust

to make a mess in the oven.

Let the crust cool completely.

Brownie Caramel Cheesecake:

Ingredients

1 14 ounce package caramels

5 ounces evaporated milk

2 cups crumbled unfrosted brownies

3 8-ounce packages cream cheese

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

3 large eggs

8 ounces sour cream

2 teaspoons vanilla

Combine caramels and milk in a small heavy saucepan; cook over low heat, stirring often until caramels melt.  Pour over crust.  Sprinkle crumbled brownies over caramel.  Beat cream cheese at medium speed of mixer until light and fluffy.  Gradually add sugar, mixing well.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating just until blended.  Stir in sour cream and vanilla.  Pour batter carefully over brownies.  Back at 350 degrees for 50 to 60 minutes or until cheesecake is almost set.  Turn off heat and let cheesecake remain in oven another hour, undisturbed.  remove from oven and let cool to room temperature on a wire rack.  Cover and let chill at least four hours.  remove sides from springform pan.  Garnish with chocolate curls and whipped cream, if desired.

That's the EXACT recipe.  Do I do it that way?  uhmmmmm No'm.  I don't.

I make 'from scratch' brownies.  Did I have to?  Nope.

In a bind for time, I've used mixes.  In a real bind for

time I've used Little Debbie brownies.

 Do you see a pot?  No.  Microwave these candies.  Two minutes on
high, stirring to break up the candies and then three minutes on medium.
The quick-melt caramel chips work great!

A whisk will make the melted caramel nice and smooth.

Let it cool while putting together the rest of the cheesecake.

 Whip the cream cheese until very fluffy.  It makes for a
very smooth texture.

 Pinky extended is the only way to gradually add brown sugar.

 If you're using farm eggs like I am, always (and I do mean always)
break them individually into a bowl or cup.  Forget a rotten apple.
A rotten egg really will spoil the whole recipe.

 MMMmmmmmm...  Look at that KitchenAid go!

 Stir in the sour cream?  I don't think so.  Turn the KitchenAid or
mixer down to the lowest setting.

 Putting the caramel on the bottom could possibly result
in baked caramel under the crust. You'll need
a prybar to get it out of the pan.  If there is the smallest
fissure in the crust, the caramel will go through it if put on the crust first.
Trust me.  I know these things...  Put the brownies on first.
This is THREE cups of brownies, by the way.
Two cups just doesn't cover.

Pour the batter on ever-so-gently.  It'll push brownies and melted

caramels around if rushed.

 Bake.

It'll take another thirty minutes beyond this point.  

I don't know why but it can't be rocket

science.

Everything else is pretty much like the recipe says.  As much as I love chocolate, I don't garnish this cheesecake.  It'd be more awesome if it were, I'm sure, but a chocoholic has to draw the line somewhere.

Y'all enjoy!

The Secret to Mayree's Chicken Salad: Home Made Mayo

This isn't your mama's or grannie's chicken salad (I bet theirs is good!).  It doesn't have eggs or dry mustard or grapes of any color or water chestnuts.  It's my chicken salad with chicken, finely diced celery, pickles, chopped roasted pecans and homemade mayonnaise. That's it, that's all there is to it.

I like to season the chicken very well so it tastes like chicken and not like tuna.  Have you ever eaten someone's chicken salad and thought it was tuna?  Tuna salad is fine but chicken salad that tastes like it is naaaasty.  Lots of folks down here keep all the ingredients except the meat the same between the two sandwich fillings...not something this limited palate enjoys.

Season the chicken with your favorite flavors.  Season it VERY well.

The Pig has boneless skinless chicken breasts on sale this week for $1.18 a pound!  This is one package, a little over five pounds.

I generously use all the seasonings in that photo up there to coat the chicken.  I do that in the sink, by the way.  I'm kinda sorta germophobic.  Chicken can be a major carrier of microbes.  I like to sanitize the sink with bleach before AND after using it.  I don't feel like I can get a container of any sort clean enough to kill all the cooties that might be present in it or on the chicken.  I season all the meats in a sanitized sink.  That's just me and Ben saying:  An ounce of precaution is worth a pound of cure.

Life is easier if you plow around the stumps.  Make it so:  line the pan.

Cover and bake however fast or slow you want to.  These are boneless skinless breasts, they'll bake quickly without getting tough.  I covered the chicken with foil and baked at 400 F. for forty minutes (or so).

My oven bakes 'slow,' meaning it's approximately 

twenty-five degrees cooler than the thermostat.

That's the chicken started.  Time to assemble everything else:

Lots of celery, Wickles (wickedly delicious pickles), 

and pecans (at least a cup).

Chop the pecans in your handy dandy pecan chopper like mine.

Put in something oven proof and throw in the oven to roast.

Finely dice celery.

This is four cups of diced celery.  There are no big honkin' chunks,

just delightful little explosive crunches of flavor and texture.

Drain and chop Wickles.  I'm out of home made sweet pickles or I'd use them.  Say no to sweet pickle relish.  It's just not the same.  It's better to not use any pickles at all than to confound the flavors with all that sweet syrupy mustard-seedy funky stuff.

 Wickles are sweet with a nice bite.  I didn't use any black pepper seasoning

the chicken because I knew I was using these.  I didn't use peppercorns

in the mayo for the same reason.  They're spicy!

That's a little more than one cup of diced Wickles.

Are you checking FB and texting and talking?  Did you check the chicken and pecans in the oven?  I did.  They're done.

It's mayonnaise time while these are cooling.

That's apple cider vinegar in the blue wine bottle.  When you're making mayo 

for salads I highly recommend it.  The flavor it gives to the mayo is incredible 

- for salads, that is.  I do not want a tomato sandwich 

made with it, come summer.

The ingredients are a cup of each kind of oil, a slim teaspoon of salt, a packed teaspoon of roasted garlic, 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar and two very small medium eggs.

You can make it with all one kind of oil but I like this half and half 

combination.  The the two medium eggs are very small.  It'd only take one of 

Perlena's Peculiar Hennie eggs.

I make it in the CuisinArt.  It's very easy!

Those are the eggs well processed and the apple cider vinegar

about to be added.

Vinegar is incorporated and roasted garlic and salt are next.

I like to use roasted garlic in it.  You can use fresh garlic to kick up the flavor

a couple of notches but dispose of it within a couple of days.  Fresh garlic has a low pH;

it doesn't keep well.

 Slowly....

 Sllllllowly....

Almost there!  Slowly...

Tadadaaaaa!

That's a little over two cups of home made roasted garlic mayo!

Watch!  I'm going to show you the secret to a wonderful texture for chicken for salad.

 Cut the chicken in chunks that will go through the feeder tube on you food processor.

 Turn the machine on...

 And let gravity do the rest!

 None of it is any thicker than 4 mm.  It's almost perfectly shredded!

 Add the pecans and chicken to celery and Wickles.

 Add mayo and stir to combine.  It's not a super creamy

kind of chicken salad.

 It's crunchy with celery and pecans.  The pecans are unexpected and, being roasted,

lend an incredible bent to the flavor.  And the apple cider vinegar will have you

looking for apples in it, too!

Y'all enjoy!