Kitchen Konquest: Say Cheese...cake!

Here's a Kitchen Konquest from Cali...with my baker cousins - these girls know their stuff!!! We went cherry picking earlier in the day and got 15lbs!  So what do you do with all those cherries? You bake!

We made cherry topped cheesecake...but here's the twist...it's the recipe in pictures! Enjoy! :) 

Pit 3 1/2 cups of fresh cherries

1 3/4 cups of graham crackers finely crushed

Beat 18oz. of cream cheese with 1 cup of sour cream, 3/4 cup of super fine sugar and 2 tsp of vanilla extract.  Add 3 eggs one at at time and beat until all the lumps are blended.

Stir in graham cracker crumbs into 1 stick of melted butter.

Grease a 10 in springform cake pan. Spread the buttered crumbs in the base of the pan pressing down to make an even base. Chill for 30 min.

For the topping, put the pitted cherries in a sauce pan with 2 tbsp of superfine sugar and 1 tbsp water over medium heat.  Allow the fruit to reduce...it's really cool how it makes it's own sauce!

See! but this is way to watery...have to keep it on the heat to let it thicken up and to let the cherries get tender. Cool this before you top the cake.

Pour cream cheese mixture over the chilled base.

Don't be deceived...it's not done yet...

Place the cake pan in a hot water bath...1-1.5 in of boiling water.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake with water bath for 50 min. Chill the cake for 4 hours.

Top the chilled cheesecake with the chilled cherry topping...allow it to set.

Y. U. M.

Enjoy!

NYC Masti: Painting in the new decade

May marked a big month for me...the beginning of my third decade!  I wanted to celebrate this milestone birthday by doing something different and very 'Shilpa' and I found the perfect option...Paint Along NYC! 

My husband and I attended one of their painting classes last fall and really enjoyed it.  Basically the whole class paints the same picture as the instructor, Marti, takes you step by step to create your individual masterpiece...all while drinking wine...yes, it's a BYO!

With Marti

I contacted Marti about setting up a painting session for me and my friends and she was very accommodating.  She even let me pick the painting!  To my surprise, we had a total of 15 people sign up.

Some of the boys showing off their artwork

The class was a blast! At first I was nervous about how everyone would get along...and I wasn't sure how the boys in the group would take to painting...but it all went really smoothly...I'm sure the wine played a part in this.  Everyone got along, we even had Marti cracking jokes with us! 

Busy painting!

We all added a bit of our own flare and personality to each painting so each one was unique!  I made the vase in my painting into a wine bottle with a label that reads "Vintage 30" to mark the event.

Yay, Thirty!

Of course the painting class was just a part of the birthday weekend celebrations, but it was one of my favorites!  So much that now I want to go again...too bad I don't have any more wall space for new paintings. Thirty has definitely started off on the right foot!

Ta-Da!