Cheese Cake

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Two springs ago, a local church drove a large truck through the War Zone. They had dozens of cases of fresh strawberries in the bed.

I ran out just in time to collect 2 cases.

I stemmed each berry, rinsed them and let them dry thoroughly on towels. I placed berries on cookie sheets, not touching, and froze solid. I filled zippered plastic bags with berries and stored in the freezer.

I was cleaning out my refrigerator today and found a pint of cottage cheese that was getting old. I also found half a pint of sour cream.

I decided to make cheese cake.

In a large bowl, blend the following with an egg beater.

1 pint cottage cheese
1/2 pint sour cream
3 eggs
1 c flour
1/4 c sugar
pinch salt
3 tbsp. vanilla extract
scant milk

Only use enough milk to thin the batter to pancake or cake batter consistancy. Keep it a bit thick.

I sprayed my cake pans with nons-stick spray which happened to be lemon flavored. I don't flour my pans for cheese cake.

In a food processor, I finely crumbed one 6 oz. package of La Moderna Marias cookies. This is a very inexpensive Mexican brand. They're made with vegetable shortenings and oils and have a hint of artificial lemon flavor. They're very crisp.

Graham crackers are more traditional, but I like the price, lemony flavor, and crispiness.

I poured the crumbs on the bottom of the pan. Many people make crumb crusts with butter, but I find the cheese cake filling binds the crust well enough.

I set thawed, raw strawberries around the pan, evenly spaced, apx. 1" apart.

I baked in a 350 degree Farenheit oven for almost an hour.

In the mean time, I'm sauteeing thawed, raw strawberries on the stove an very low heat.

I have drained the juice from a can of pineapple chunks, and whipped 2 tbsps. cornstarch into the juice.

When the strawberries are cooked, I will slowly stir in the corn starch mixture, sugar to taste and the pineapple chunks. This makes a thick, fruity glaze for the cake.

The cake is removed from the oven, cooling thoroughly on a rack.

Then, I'll apply my glaze and let it cool.

NOTE: cheese cake can be made entirely sugarless. Just substitute very ripe bananas for sour cream and sugar.