Friday, May 27, 2011

Who knew?

You can whip Milnot just like cream into stiff peaks? Well you can.

We had asked Brian's mom for some of her "secret" family recipes. Brian had been talking about his mom's no-bake cheese cake since we started dating. She gave it to us a while back and we finally got around to shopping for the ingredients that we don't usually have on hand - Milnot and lemon jello.

Now remember Brian's momma is of the generation that bought the whole  "fast food for better living" that was promoted in the 60's and 70's. Less time in the kitchen you know and more time to do  other things. 

We try to avoid processed food as much as possible. So no Milnot hanging around the kitchen at our place. 

Once we had the Milnot and the jello I didn't have any excuse for not making the cheesecake so I got started:
8 oz of cream cheese softened was mixed with 1 cup of sugar (I started wondering if you could cut down the sugar or use honey instead... best not to experiment the first time you try something new.) Added the teaspoon of vanilla to this mixture and set it aside.
1 cup of boiling water added to the jello to dissolve and that lemony mix was put in the fridge to cool.
Crushed the graham crackers and added butter (I refuse to use margarine. You gotta draw the line somewhere.) Pressed the crumb mix into my favorite pie plate. It seemed like an awful lot of crust. Brian wasn't around to ask and I didn't have Mom Jordan's phone number handy so I pressed on.

Then I took on the Milnot. I had chilled it in the fridge overnight. I poured it into a mixing bowl and attacked it with the beaters. Call me a skeptic, but I just couldn't believe you could make whipped Milnot.
It didn't take more than a couple of minutes and I had stiff peaks. Really? who knew?

Then the jello got mixed into the cream cheese mixture. At this point the directions weren't very clear to me, so I folded the cream cheese mixture into the whipped Milnot.  OK up to this point I had been fighting the urge to taste it. It looked and smelled really good. I gave in and scooped up a dollop on my finger. Pretty good stuff! Sort of tasted like those yogurt "Whips" from the store.

So then I poured it  into the waiting pie plate. OOPS! there was way too much to fit in the pie. So I put the extra in some bowls.

Of course when Brian got home he informed me that his mom made it in a 9 X 13 cake pan not a pie plate. Oh and that I forgot to put a little sprinkle of graham crumbs on the top to make it pretty.

I'll do better next time.

Brian said it tasted just like mom's even if it was in the wrong pan and minus sprinkles. He loves graham cracker crust so he was happy it was extra thick. I don't really like graham cracker crust so I enjoyed the bowls of  "extra" filling.

It is amazingly good once you get your mind past the fact it has Milnot and Jello in it. I'm going to try making it with raw heavy cream, natural unflavored gelatin, honey and lemon juice the next time.



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