Healthy Dessert or Hog Fodder?

        I’m going to give the words of wisdom first today, then explain. If you are invited to come for a meal – think twice before you accept or make sure Ronald is cooking! Bless my heart, I don’t think the Lord wanted me to be a cook.

        Today I woke up with way too much energy and was in a throwing away mood. I cleaned the kitchen cabinets – there were three partial boxes of pancake mix, two of cornbread mix, three of elbow macaroni, and two of lasagna noodles. I got that squared away in addition to throwing away miscellaneous stale crackers. The laundry room was next where I rearranged some Tupperware. I cleaned out the refrigerator and found I had 7 eight-ounce packages of cream cheese. I put four on the counter to soften.

        Now my one claim to fame is my cream cheese cookies that my girls call my ‘Devil Woman Cookies’, because they can’t stop eating them and I am pure evil to make them. I decided instead to try my hand at truly healthy dessert and found a recipe for sugar free, gluten free cheesecake. Since I love cheesecake and had all that cream cheese softened, I would double the recipe. I went back to the refrigerator to see if the package in the back was almond or coconut flour. As I pulled it forward, the lid to the coconut flour came off, sharing the mealy stuff all over the clean refrigerator and the floor. But that’s okay. I always know not to vacuum until I am totally through cooking. Since the recipe called for almond flour instead of coconut, all was good.

Earlier I had found a HUGE bag of almonds in the cabinet. I blended the almonds into almond meal. The recipe did say almond flour could be replaced with almond meal. So far, so good.

I took a Tupperware box from the refrigerator that was labeled X – I was pretty sure it was Xylitol, an artificial sweetener. Since I don’t like the taste of straight up artificial sweetener, I added the proper amount to the crust without tasting it. How hard can a recipe be? Almond meal, sweetener, and butter. I mixed it up and pressed it carefully into a large glass dish, knowing I would need that size for a double recipe of cheesecake.

        The next direction was to mix two and a half cups of sweetener with the 32 ounces of cream cheese. I measured it out but didn’t have enough of the X, so I added ¾ cup of powdered Stevia. I began to mix the combination – until fluffy it said. As my concoction lumped beneath the mixer and spewed fragments over my recently bleached floor, I thought, well maybe if I add the six eggs, and lemon juice, and vanilla, it will turn out right.

        Didn’t happen.

        Now, it had been a long while since I had tried to cook something as goofy as ‘healthy dessert’. I realized when the concoction refused to become the right consistency that perhaps the X wasn’t Xylitol. I wet my finger and ran it along the now empty container I had got the X from. Come to find out, the X was Not Xylitol, but Xanthan gum – closely kin to cornstarch – that is, a strong thickening agent.

        I said to myself, I’m going to go ahead and cook this sucker anyway. I never was too fond of dessert with too much artificial sweetener anyway. I haven’t tasted it yet. It may turn out okay. I’m going to finish this! Hope my teeth will hold up the challenge!

        The Lord does have a way of keeping me humble, that’s a fact.

        I wish I were making this up.

        Sunday, the minister said God has a plan for everyone’s life. This late in the game, I am pretty sure God doesn’t expect me to become a chef.

        God love us!

        Blessings

                Kara Beth       

PS I tasted it. It was horrible! I wish I were raising hogs so I could feed it to them. On second thought, I don’t even think a pig would eat this stuff! However, it does make great garbage can fodder!