I want dessert so ba-a-a-ad!

...sorry for that.

I'm going to a fish fry this weekend and I am so freaking excited about all the good stuff that will be there-- local fish, home-brewed beer, tasty kebabs and portobello mushrooms and thick slabs of bacon cooked over a fire...

My mom and I both had the idea to bring cheesecake. Since we had vastly different ideas of what kind, we're both still bringing it-- hers is going to be a Bailey's Irish Creme Mint cheesecake, while mine is goat cheese (get the bad joke in the title now?) with key lime drizzle and fresh berries (and both cakes are gluten-free for my mama). I just pulled mine out of the oven and it is torture smelling the crust and not digging in right away! But I'm cheating-- this is a trial run, and I'm bringing it to work tomorrow to test on my coworkers, so I'll get to eat it about 30 hours before everyone else. Mwahaha!

The idea for my cheesecake came from a dessert I had about a month ago at one of my favorite local restaurants (Deagan's Kitchen and Bar-- I was actually there three times during the week in question). Their Key Lime and Goat Cheese Crepes were just stupidly good, you have no freaking idea. I haven't been able to get the combo of goat cheese and key lime out of my mind and it's been driving me CRAZY, I TELL YOU. CRAZY!

So here is my answer, born of several recipes I found online and my own touches and modifications to make it gluten-free and totally awesome.

Gluten-free Goat Cheesecake with Key Lime Drizzle and Fresh Berries (ok, I don't have the berries yet but bear with me!)

In true Molly style, I set things up all pretty and completely forgot to take pictures. Worst blogger ever. I SHALL PAINT YOU A WORD PICTURE. Or just, like, tell you how to make this thing.

Ingredients:
Crust
1 stick of butter, plus extra to grease pan
3 cups Honey Chex (measured before crushing)
2-3 tsp. sugar
Cinnamon (a couple dashes)

Batter (recipe taken mostly from here, with inspiration from sundry other similar recipes)
11oz Goat Cheese, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar, plus extra for dusting
1 1/2 tsp. fresh lemon juice (I toyed with using key lime juice and may try it next time)
1 tsp. lemon zest
1 tsp. vanilla
6 eggs, room temperature, separated
3 Tbsp. gluten-free all-purpose flour

Sauce (recipe taken from here but with slightly less sugar)
1 Tbsp. corn starch (hint-- Walmart's brand may contain traces of wheat, so check labels if you need this to be gluten-free)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup key lime juice
1/4 plus 3 Tbsp. water

Topping
Fresh berries (I'll probably go with black and red raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries, although if I can find some currants, I'm all over that.)

Instructions:
Pre-heat oven to 350F. Grease a 9" springform pan and dust with sugar. (If you grease and dust well enough, you can probably get away with a regular cake pan but I make no promises.)

Melt butter in a sauce pan. Crush Chex-- my method was to put them in a zippered plastic bag and smoosh them with a rolling pin. Combine butter, Chex, sugar, and cinnamon. Spread into springform pan and use the bottom of a glass to press the mixture down evenly. Set aside.

Note: Please forgive me in this next part-- my awesome friends and family recently bought me a KitchenAid mixer and I didn't even have to get married for it! So I'm going to obnoxiously add little notes as to which speed I used for each step. It's a freaking KitchenAid! Come on! Who do you know who has one who didn't get it as a wedding gift? ME.

Combine the goat cheese, sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla in a mixing bowl and beat on medium speed (HEY GUYS I USED SPEED 4 ON MY AWESOME MIXER) until smooth (IT WAS LIKE NO TIME AT ALL AND I TOTALLY JUST STOOD THERE AND WATCHED IT HAPPEN). Add two egg yolks and beat until they're fully mixed in (STILL ON 4, GUYS! IT HAPPENS SO FAST!). Repeat for remaining egg yolks. Add flour and mix on low speed (I USED 2!! But some flour was kind of trapped in the middle of the beater and not getting mixed in so I did have to help a little with a spoon, BUT I CAN COMPLETELY FORGIVE THAT.)

In a separate bowl and with clean beaters (I had to switch to my stupid little cheap-ass hand-held mixer) beat the egg whites until they're firm (this took for-freaking-EVER, but probably not. I just didn't like having to actually participate in the mixing process). Add a third of the egg whites into the batter and mix well. Gently fold the remaining whites into the batter.

Scoop it all out into the pan. Bake for 40 minutes or until a toothpick poked in the center comes out clean. (I saw several recipes saying to wrap the pan in foil and bake in a hot water bath, which I'm going to do next time). Release latch and FREE YOUR CAKE FROM ITS ALUMINUM PRISON! FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then, you know, cool it off. Maybe on a cooling rack (I'm feeling kind of special because I finally got me one of those today).

Now the sauce! Dissolve the corn starch in 3 Tbsp. water. In a small, non-aluminum sauce pan, combine sugar, lime juice, and remaining water. Bring to a boil to dissolve sugar, then add corn starch mixture and boil, stirring, until sauce thickens. I funneled mine into a squeeze bottle and refrigerated it for awhile, then applied it liberally to the cheesecake.

And like I said, I don't have the berries yet (I want them to be super super extra fresh at the party) so you get a boring picture of a berry-less cake:

 I couldn't resist, since this is just a trial run:

It was at least everything I'd hoped for!! Can't wait to share it!

Let's talk more about casseroles.

Growing up, I'd hear about recipes for casseroles. I had a favorite cheesy potato casserole that I'd make, always following the recipe word for word. The tuna casserole my mom made was a mystery to me because I never saw the recipe card. Casseroles were things with rules and precise measurements and very particular ingredients.

Until, one day, I was hungry.

I almost always have several things on-hand-- cream of something soup, rice or pasta, some type of frozen or canned vegetable, and either cornflakes or saltines. The soup was usually meant to go with a sandwich of some kind. The pasta was waiting for me to buy tomato sauce. Rice... honestly I can't even remember what the hell I'd eat with rice. Fish or something? Vegetables were from the days when I'd tell myself I'd eat healthier, but not so immediately that fresh produce would be worth the money. Saltines are an awesome late-night snack with butter when you're broke, and cornflakes are cornflakes and constantly worthy of being in my cupboard.

Ok, so I had partial components of many meals. The day in question, there was rice, cream of celery soup, cottage cheese, cornflakes, and turnip greens in my kitchen. And not much else.

And then it hit me-- I HAD A CASSEROLE. And from then on, I had a formula:

Something starchy (pasta, rice, potatoes)
Something creamy OR soupy (cream of mushroom/chicken/celery/onion soup, sour cream, cottage cheese, gravy)
Optional filler (canned tuna or chicken, ground beef, peas, turnip greens, spinach, mushrooms, onions, chunks of cheese, or pretty much anything else you want)
Optional topper (saltines, cornflakes, or whatever else you think might make a good crust)

Decide what you want for ingredients. Preheat your oven to 350*F. Cook your starch according to the packaging (if you're using frozen hash browns/home fries, you can skip that and just let them cook in the oven as part of the casserole). Add in your soup/gravy/cream. Add your filler. Mix well and spread into a greased casserole dish. Add your topper (and keep in mind that crushed corn flakes mixed with melted butter is a great topping AND a delicious, if incredibly unhealthy snack) and bake for about 30-45 minutes (maybe longer for frozen potatoes, but I think those take around 50). Enjoy with bread and butter (optional, except in my house).

CASSEROLES ARE EASY AND AWESOME, YO.

And I'll leave you with one more half-assed recipe for one of the more creative casseroles I've seen in my time, The Reuben Bake.

In layers: sauerkraut pierogies,  sliced corned beef, Swiss cheese, Thousand Island dressing, rye croutons. Bake. Enjoy. Sorry I was several weeks late for St. Patrick's Day.

Prep Work

I'm an instant-gratification kind of person, like so many of us are these days. Planning ahead tends to make me impatient. When it comes to eating, if I'm going to be messing around with food, I pretty much want to be eating it now. NOW! But with a tiny kitchen, a little prep work makes cooking much less of a hassle.

I'm going to share some things I do to make meal times easier. To a lot of people these are probably no-brainers, but I never worried about this stuff before and got along fine. Now I've got to adjust to having two feet of counter space, and I'm learning as I go.

1. Wash all your produce as you get it. I love salads-- they're an instant side dish when I'm too lazy or don't have enough pans to steam broccoli or make mashed potatoes. Salads aren't difficult to throw together when all the lettuce and toppings are already washed, and when I'm making a complicated meal, I don't necessarily have the time or the space to wash and strain my lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, etc. So I wash them when the sink is empty, and they're ready to eat when I want to eat them. If something has stems, this is when I pull off the leaves, like with spinach or parsley. Anything that didn't come in a container than I can reuse goes into a baggy or a container I saved from something else.

2. Cut things ahead of time. In my apartment, red onions are for salads. Period. So when I get a red onion, I can cut it into rings and put it in a sealed container, and when it's time for the salad, I just have to grab my pre-washed lettuce and grape tomatoes and mushrooms and my pre-cut onions and I'm on my way. Also, I prefer lemon, salt, and pepper to salad dressing, so I tend to have a container of lemon slices in the fridge for my salads, and because I love lemon in my water and iced tea too. Sometimes if I know I'll be using it with the next couple days, I'll chop parsley ahead of time or mince some garlic. I tend to keep the little to-go ramekins I get from restaurant leftovers, and these are perfect for prepping small-quantity ingredients.

3. Thaw frozen meat in the refrigerator for a day before you cook it. A steak is going to be so much better if it thaws gradually than if you run water over it and wash away the juices, or if you (oh god no) nuke it.

4. Measure ingredients before you start cooking. I said before I'm not much of one for measuring, but I also don't just pour things from the containers all willy-nilly. If you're making a dish with lots of ingredients, or one that's time-sensitive or labor-intensive (I'm looking at you, risotto), you'll have a much easier time if your ingredients are close at hand, pre-measured into cups or bowls and ready to grab and pour. I do this especially with baking, so that the flour and sugar and baking powder and whatever else are all snug back in the cupboard before I start stirring and knocking things over. Although the thought of my cat covered in flour is a little bit hilarious...