there is always next time........

Wednesday I woke up super late, like 11:30am late.  Not entirely unusual for me, but certainly not the norm.  I stumbled into the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and found my right eye to be almost swollen shut. WTF?!?  Aren't eye infections for kids?  Not really, and being a pharmacist I know that all too well, but I certainly don't remember ever having an eye infection in my adulthood.  I was able to get in to see another MD in my usual MD's office to check out my shanker.  Lucky for me I got the same prescription for the same eye ointment that I remember my mom struggling to put in my eye when I was like 4 years old.  Who decides that an ointment is the best vehicle to get an antibiotic into someones eye?  A person that has never had an eye infection, that's who.  Anyway -- check out my lovely stye -- thankfully it is no longer -- wait for it -- an eye sore on my face.  It's word play people.


Gross

What else to do on my shanker of a day off?  Make a fricking cheesecake is what!!  I've been wanting to get all Pioneer Woman up in diz bitch for awhile now.  And Wednesday was the day to make that happen.  Let's get one thing straight -- I'm a shitty cook.  I have no talent in the food industry.  Bobby Flay will never be throwing down anything that comes out of my kitchen.  I envy the types of cooks that can just throw something awesome together with what is in their fridge.  Emptying a potpourri of different spices into a crockpot and making an orgasmically good meal.  I am not that cook.  I follow recipes to the letter.  Anyway, I've been wanting to try to make a cheesecake from scratch for some time, an Oreo cheesecake if you want specifics.  I found a recipe online, at allrecipes.com.   Easy Philly Oreo Cheesecake.  The ingredients and prep time seemed reasonable, and it was rated almost 5 out of 5 stars.  How could I go wrong?

Ingredients include lots o' Oreos, butter, and one exact load of cream cheese.  The first thing you want to do is leave that cream cheese out of the fridge for a few hours to soften up. 

3 bricks of Philly cream cheese to be accurate.  I'm already loving this recipe just based on the amount of cream cheese involved.  While the cream cheese is working on softening up, you'll want to work on preparing the crust.  This involves 16 Oreo cookies, divided.  You can either crush them up in a resealable plastic bag, or do what I did and pulse the shit out of them in my Kitchen Aid chopper. 

Actually, you don't really want to pulse "the shit" out of them.  More like pulse them gently until they crumble, but leave some chunkiness.  Kinda like this:

After the Oreos are chopped to your liking, add some melted butter and mix it up.  Then press the mixture firmly onto the bottom of a springform pan.  (insert inside joke here: Get me a pan Gina!)  Hopefully yours will look as awesome as mine did:

Then you'll want to take a swig of one of these.  Maybe take a little break to collect your thoughts.

Okay, break is over.  We're not paying you to stand around and drink coffee.  Beat the bricks o' cream cheese, 3/4 cup sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla with a mixer on medium speed until well blended.  Dip finger in mixture and insert in mouth to make sure mixture is not poisonous.  Do this a few times during process.

Here come the eggs!

Add them one at a time, beating until just blended after each addition.  Then chop or crush the remaining 8 cookies.  Add half into the cream cheese batter.  Yum......

Pour the batter into your already prepared springform pan.  Sprinkle the remaining chopped cookies over the top.

Then bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes or until the center is almost set.  This is where I think things for my creation took a nose dive.  I don't know what "set" means.  I think my center was set before 45 minutes and I didn't know it.  I think I overcooked the bastard.  Let it cool, then refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight. 

Overall, I thought it was a pretty good first cheesecake ever!  I think next time I'll cook it for less than 45 minutes.  It seemed really dense.  I was hoping for a more fluffy cheesecake.  There was nothing fluffy about this cheesecake.  Anyone out there know what I can do differently to make a more fluffy cheesecake?

Here's the recipe if you're interested!!