our Saturday

I was about to start this blog post with, "Two weekends in a row with no work, woo hoo!", then I remembered I worked today. Oh well, life is still much better and slower than the past few months! I think my Saturday was just so wonderful it felt like I had the whole weekend off.

Saturday started off with lunch with my brother Matt and my parents for an early celebration of Mom's birthday.

Mom hates taking "short hair pictures", but I say short hair is certainly much better than a wig, and look how long it's getting!

 

We celebrated with a chocolate chip cheesecake made my yours truly. I was a little nervous about my first homemade cheesecake, but it turned out fantastic. It was simple and delicious! (See end of post for recipe.)

Later that afternoon Christy came through town on her way back to Nashville, and we gathered to cheer for Arkansas at Chuy's. That's a lie. We gathered to have cheese dip and margaritas under the guise of watching the game. It was a blast. We've been friends for almost 20 years now and it is always so fun to reunite. Considering we are all in health care, it never fails that our conversations turn to the hilarious and disturbing things we see on a daily basis.

Auburn has got to stop giving me unstable vitals (nerdy, I know) every Saturday night. Nonetheless, WAR EAGLE!!

Hope your weekend was as wonderful as ours!

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Recipe

Ingredients:

1 box brownie mix (dark chocolate)

3 boxes cream cheese (1/3 fat)

1 can condensed milk (fat free)

1 bag mini chocolate chips

3 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

Instructions:

1. Prepare brownie mix according to box, using directions for chewy brownies. Pour mix into baking dish of choice. The recipe calls for a springform pan, but after googling springform pan to learn what it was and confirm that I didn't have one, I used two 8 inch pie pans and poured half the mix in each.

2. Cook crust for 35 minutes at 350 degrees. Let cool completely.

3. To prepare cheesecake filling, use a mixer to whip cream cheese until fluffy. Mix in condensed milk, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in chocolate chips (I coated them in flour to keep them from sinking to the bottom). Pour into pan(s).

4. Cook at 300 for 50 minutes. From a tip off the internet, I put a pan of water under the pies to keep the cheesecake from cracking. Turn oven off and crack door. Let sit in oven for an additional hour. 

5. Garnish as desired (I sprinkled chocolate chips on top, but some of your more creative people could probably make it prettier!). Refrigerate until ready to serve. Best prepared the day before so that cheesecake has adequate time to chill.

6. Eat and enjoy. I promise it's fantastic! (Next time I plan on using a deeper pie pan so the cheesecake layer is thicker, but other than that I won't change a thing!).