StumbleUpon | rweston's comments & reviews

http://rweston.stumbleupon.com/review/30395710/

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:16:24 -0800

Let me start by stating that I got this recipe from Apricot.com... thank you, thank you, thank you!
My wife adores this super creamy, super chocolate cheesecake - which is good, because I made it for her for Valentine's Day!

Makes one 9.5" cake. This can easily serve from 12-14 people as it does not take much to fill a person up.

Ingredients
Crumb Crust

1.75 cup of chocolate wafers

7 tbs of butter.

Cake

7 oz semisweet chocolate

24 oz cream cheese at room temperature

1 cup granulated white sugar

1/8 teaspon of salt

3 large eggs

1 cup sour cream

1 teaspon vanilla extract

Topping

2 cups sour cream

1/4 cup granulated white sugar

Preparation
1.Let all ingredients reach room temperature.

2.Melt the chocolate. Stir until it is absolutely smooth then set aside for it to reach room temperature.

3.Using a flat paddle, beat the cream cheese until smooth and soft. Add the sugar and salt and beat until the mixture is very creamy.
Stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl.

Add the eggs one at a time while mixing.

Add the sour cream and the vanilla and beat until well combined.

4.Stir 1 cup of the cream cheese mixture into the melted and cooled chocolate. Stir until the color is uniform. Then turn all of the chocolate mixture back in to the rest of the cream cheese batter and beat just to blend.

5.Smooth the cake top flat. Set the filled pan on a sturdy baking sheet or jelly-roll pan. Set the cake in the center of a pre-heated oven and bake for 40 minutes.

NOTE: It is very important that the oven be at 350 deg F when you put the cake in it. I also recommend that you do not open the oven for the first 30 minutes at least!

You bake essentially till the entire top of the cake has a dull finish, and the top just jiggles slightly when you tap the side of the pan. It should not move in waves as if it were liquid.

6.Remove the cake from the oven and set it on something that is heat proof.

7.Increase the oven temperature to 450 deg F. While the oven is heating, prepare the topping by combining the sour cream and sugar.

8.Wait until the oven has reached 450 deg F. then spread the topping on top of the cheese cake and return it to the oven.

9.Bake for 10 more minutes.

10.Turn the oven off and open the door. Let the cheese cake sit in the oven for about 30 minutes.

11.Remove the pan and set it on a wire rack to cool. This rack should be away from drafts.

When it has reached room temperature, cover it with plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge for at least four hours to allow the cake to become firm.

I recommend removing it from the fridge for about 30 minutes before you serve it.

Notice that my cheesecake was too soft in the center - didn't cook it quite long enough! My wife didn't mind, however.

http://rweston.stumbleupon.com/review/30231993/

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 15:48:15 -0800

Vacation at the Beach!

We were staying at the Embarcadero in Newport, Oregon. The Embarcadero is located right on the Yaquina Bay. Vacations Internationale, a membership vacation organization we joined late last year, owns 41 condos at the Embarcadero.

This was our first VI experience - and it was wonderful! The people went out of their way to be friendly and helpful. The condo was great... and all the rooms will be renovated this year! We saw some of the renovated condos (Thank you, Doug, for the tour and for all the helpful information about crabbing and clamming!) and they are very nice. Our condo had a wonderful view (see above), the kitchen was fully equipped, and everything was so pleasant and comfortable! If you have any interest in a package like Vacations Internationale, I highly recommend them. We've looked at others, but no one impressed us like Vacations Internationale. Let me know if you're interested. And if you speak with them, please let them know I referred you - there's a substantial bonus (20 points!) for referring people.

I spent a lot of time crabbing on the crabbing dock. Unfortunately, I didn't catch much - wrong time of year. I met up with a couple of surveyors who have been living weekdays at the Embarcadero for the last few months; they were bringing in 20 to 30 crab a day during peak periods but are only getting 2 to 6 crabs a day now. But I had fun! I did manage to catch one legal size Dungeness crab - it was delicious - and several Red Rock crab. According to my friends, the surveyors, the crabbing is best at night, under the full moon, during low tide. And chicken drumsticks were the preferred bait. I also learned that crab traps work much better than crab rings, so next time I will have traps!

As you can see from the other photos, we had great weather - astonishing for February! We did have a very quick windstorm the first day. I pulled in my crab rings, wading through about six inches of waves that were washing across the crab dock, and went to sit in the Jacuzzi bath in my room... when I came out of the bath, the winds were gone!

Since we had a fully equipped kitchen, we ate out only a couple of times, but made a real find! Super Oscar's Mexican Food offers simple, inexpensive Mexican food. I love Chili Relleno's and especially loved Oscar's - it was clearly prepared from scratch and delicious, although the rice and beans were not terribly exciting. But everyone in our party was very pleased with their food and the staff was wonderful - friendly, helpful, and courteous. No frills here - plain Formica tables, plastic eating utensils - but highly recommended. We will eat there every time we go to Newport. And they serve food 24 hours a day!

http://rweston.stumbleupon.com/review/30052711/

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:47:06 -0800

New administration, same old crooks. Obama promised change... of course, he also promised no lobbyists in high positions, but hey! We now have former lobbyists in high places... curiously enough, they are high level advisors to that tax-cheating Geitner. Sadly, it's important to specify WHICH tax-cheat we're talking about - just saying tax-cheat leaves a lot of possibilities in Obama's administration. Oh, and Barney Frank is now sitting in judgment of businessmen. Barney Frank, the *!?&%#! who bears a really, really large part of the blame for our economic meltdown. Barney Frank who said that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were just fine - no problems there! 'Course that's not all that surprising considering that Obama was the second largest recipient of corruption funds from Freddie and Fannie. Congratulations, America, you picked a real winner there! You deserve to lose every one of those trillions of dollars Obama and buddies are stealing from you.

http://rweston.stumbleupon.com/review/29965554/

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:14:49 -0800

An image Thursday of spiral galaxy NGC 4921 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope

http://rweston.stumbleupon.com/review/29964817/

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:39:12 -0800

SEH America - my employer - has shutdown for a month due to the economic crisis and resulting dramatic drop in orders for semiconductor products. So now I'm drawing unemployment and looking for another job. But at least I have a job... I'm just not... working... at the moment.

http://rweston.stumbleupon.com/review/29926773/

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:37:57 -0800

Whoa! Scientists have found fossils from a snake that was 43 feet long and weighed 2500 pounds! Yikes! It seems that the tropics were once much warmer than they are now - some 60 million years ago - which fostered the growth of gigantic cold-blooded critters. Makes we glad we're going into a cooling phase rather than a warming phase!

http://rweston.stumbleupon.com/review/29913100/

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 08:22:42 -0800

What's wrong with these tomatoes? Not a thing. These are heirloom tomatoes. They don't conform to the grocery-store standard in appearance, but they often taste much better. Photo courtesy of Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

I am hoping to obtain a community garden space this month or to find someone near my apartment who would be willing to grant me space on their property for gardening - that would be the Lincoln neighborhood of Vancouver, WA. I am an apartment dweller with no yard whatsoever. I am also helping some friends with their garden, but they live nearly twenty miles away... so I won't be spending a lot of time at their garden site.
I grew up with a family garden and I had a small garden a few years ago before I had to sell my house. Now I'm hoping to get into gardening in a much more substantial way, using mostly organic methods (I'm not idealogical about it - I just want good, clean, healthy food) and experimenting with some heirloom plants. So, here's hoping for the best!

David Petrikass 1965 Sunbeam Alpine (Series V) - Ford V8 Conversion

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:31:21 -0800

My favorite all-time car - The 1965 Sunbeam Tiger Alpine powered by a Ford V8.

Here's another from another favorite website - imcdb.org (Internet Movie Car Database), the companion to the great movie website imdb.org.

picotux - smallest Linux computer in the World

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:21:05 -0800

This is a computer? This is a computer! I have no idea how it would be used, but it's... small!

http://rweston.stumbleupon.com/review/29813361/

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 07:17:11 -0800