Monday, January 10, 2011

Insurgents, Gunmen, Netflix, Books

Saturday afternoon I heard a somewhat scary report on the radio, although I didn’t catch all of it, it was about Muslim insurgents – not sure which country - having declared people could not touch nor walk with others who were not family. They are boarding public transport with guns to Hijabensure that this is not happening and that women are not travelling alone. Women may no long work which is causing extreme hardship in many families and, of course, women have to wear the full hijab showing only their eyes. Matt’s comment was – no wonder so many come over here. But, even when they do, the men seem to enforce these kinds of rules anyway. In this day and age of liberation for women, this is quite frightening. I often wonder what it is about women that these insurgents are so scared of, their own inability to resist temptation perhaps?

Saturday also gave us the shooting of a congresswoman, Abby Giffords, who right now is still fighting for her life although she is very lucky not to have died on the spot with a bullet to the head. Both a 9 yr. old girl and a district judge did. Sadly the 9 yr. old was born on 9/11 and was amongst those kids who were labelled Children of Hope. I heard there were giffords-13 shootings with 6 people dead. I know three of those shot were Giffords’ aides one of whom was killed outright and sadly, had just become engaged. Everyone spoke very highly of both Gifford and the judge. The little girl, Christina Green, was interested in politics and had gone with her uncle to meet the congresswoman. The picture shows Abby Giffords with her husband Captain Mark Kelly, an astronaut. His brother is currently up in the space station. And still, Americans fight for the right to bear arms.

Saturday again, I watched Lucky Number Slevin on Netflix. It starred Josh Hartnett, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley and Bruce Willis. An excellent movie, not new, but good. I am beginning to be a fan of Netflix, the only trouble being that a lot of the things I am looking for are unavailable. There was an episode of one of my favourite TV shows on last night, I missed it in favour of the movie. It’s a British programme called New Tricks – I checked it out on Netflix and every season is unavailable.

I have just finished the second book in The Inheritance Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin, it is called The Broken Kingdoms. Once again I enjoyed it very much and am looking forward to the third book which is due out this year.

One of my newsletters this morning was all about cakes, just what I need. However, I thought this one looked delicious. Matt wouldn’t like it, cheesecake is one of his favourite desserts, but he likes a really good, rich cheesecake with nothing on it or in it to change the flavour. I suspect this recipe would be extremely rich and one could only manage a small slice.

Amaretto Fudge Cheesecake

Source: Cooking.com

12 servingsAmaretto Fudge Cheesecake

A thin slice of this decadent dessert is all you need to satisfy your sweet tooth. INGREDIENTS

For Crust:

One 11-ounce box chocolate wafer cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

For Filling:

10 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

20 ounces cream cheese

2/3 cup sugar

1 pint sour cream

1/4 cup amaretto

2 drops almond extract

5 large eggs

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

DIRECTIONS

FOR THE CRUST: Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Butter 9-inch-diameter springform pan with 2 3/4-inch-high sides. Finely grind cookies in food processor. Mix in butter. Press mixture over bottom and 3/4 of the way up sides of prepared pan.

FOR THE FILLING: Stir chocolate in top of double boiler set over simmering water until melted and smooth. Remove from heat. Cool 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Using electric stand mixer and paddle attachment, beat cream cheese and sugar in large bowl on medium speed until fluffy, scraping down sides of bowl occasionally. Add next 3 ingredients, beating until blended after each addition. Beat in melted chocolate. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Mix in flour just until blended. Transfer filling to prepared crust.

Bake cheesecake until edges are firm and center is softly set, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Transfer pan to rack and cool. Cover and refrigerate until cheesecake is cold, at least 4 hours or overnight.

Using knife, cut around sides of pan to loosen cake. Remove pan sides. Cut cheesecake into wedges and serve.

Have a great day

Jo

No comments:

Post a Comment