Mini cheesecakes- Oreo Cookies 'N Cream

So I decided I wanted to make cheesecake and found this post of a recipe from Martha Stewart. But I didn't have sour cream, so I searched for other cupcake cheesecakes, and found these terrific recipes for mini cupcakes.
But they weren't quite what I wanted, so I combined them and made my own recipe. This is what I came up with:

Kari's Oreo Cookies N' Cream Mini Cheesecakes

Ingredients:

2 8 oz packages of cream cheese room temperature (I actually used Neufchatel because it is 1/3 the fat and tastes just as good)
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp lemon juice
12 oreos smashed up (I put them in a sandwich bag and beat them with a Lincoln Log)
1/2 cup? chocolate chips (I didn't actually measure, I just dumped the rest of the ones from my almost bag into the bowl
18 whole oreos for cheesecake bottoms


1. Using hand mixer on medium-high speed mix cream cheese and sugar
2. Add eggs, vanilla and lemon juice- mix some more.
3. Stir in crushed oreos and chocolate chips. (The recipes all specified stirring them in by hand, but honestly, I used my mixer and it turned out fine, just don't tell the recipe people

4.*This is the point when I preheat the oven to 275 degrees because I am a little slow, if you are amazing fast you can do it at the beginning, but I am so slow it preheats and then I am normally still mixing for like 10 minutes after it's hot!
5. Put cupcake liners in muffin pan.
6. Place a whole oreo (filling and all) into the cupcake liner, center if possible.
7. Add cream cheese mixture on top of the oreos- I used an ice cream scoop and it worked perfectly, no drips even, and one scoop was the perfect size to fill each cupcake! Go ahead and fill them almost to the top, the cheesecake actually settles a little while cooking, so it's not going to overflow if you go to the top.

8.Put your pan in the oven, wait about 20 minutes until the filling has set and is no longer jiggly, then remove.

9. Put in fridge for 3-4 hours trust me on this one- you want them to be chilled before you eat them or they DO NOT taste as good!
10. ENJOY!

If you look at that last picture you can see the row in the middle is a lighter color- those were my first batch in the oven that I cooked on 275 for 22 minutes- Different recipes gave different times- the browner ones were done on 375, unfortunately I just found out I burnt the bottoms of these ones, so you could go for the middle and take the advice of the recipe that said 325 for 20 minutes. I just tasted the first batch ones- the pasty whites at 275, and they taste delicious and the middle is a little more moist and gooey- this one is just a matter of preference but I will stick with the 275 when I make them again, that Martha really knows what she is talking about!

One of the recipes also suggested keeping the cheesecakes in the pan while they cooled and then keep them in there to chill, I took mine out so I could use my pan again- I think the main benefits to keeping them in the pan is so they hold their shape slightly better and so you can cover them if you want- important if you need to clean your fridge- but if your fridge is funky-smell free, then covering them shouldn't be necessary.

Video Games

Me and Steve both have a problem. We are video game addicts. Last night I stayed up with him until 4 a.m. playing video games. What is wrong with me? He has to stay up all night to stay on his same schedule on his days off because he work nights. It was really fun to keep him company, and the game we were playing was really fun- Borderlands- but man am I tired today! Steve was so nice, when Simon woke up this morning he was still up and he let me sleep in until noon and he hung out with Simon. What a nice break!
I have the best husband. We have so much fun together, he is my best friend! I wasn't sure how much I would like his new schedule, but I am liking it pretty well. It is nice because we will lay down in bed together for an hour or two so he can take a quick nap before he goes into work, but we end up just laying in bed talking the whole time. I feel like we talk a lot more now. I think before we would text all day long, but since we are on opposite schedules we can't text each other all the time anymore. I really enjoy our "pillow talk" every night.
I just put more pictures from Belize up on facebook- one of these days I should blog about that trip before I forget about everything.

Happy Valentine's Day

Today I am feeling very un-Valentiney. It may be because I am sick with an upper respiratory infection and ear infection. It may be because I haven't had a chance to go shopping for a present for my Valentine (been potty training Simon since Friday and I am a procrastinator so that is when I would have started shopping). It may be because I only saw my Valentine for about 20 minutes today- but he did bring me really pretty roses! It may be because I am not even wearing pink or red. It may be because I didn't decorate my house for Valentine's Day- not a single heart hanging anywhere.
So with that last statement typed, I just decided I will have to cut out some hearts and stuff and hang them up. Me and my Valentine are going to celebrate on Wednesday, so I figure I have a good two days to get really decorated and buy him a present- but I already know what I want to get him and have for a while, so that counts for something right!?
Although I am feeling un-Valentiney, I am very grateful for my husband today. I am so grateful that was able to marry such an amazing man, and then be sealed to him for time and eternity. He is stuck with me forever and I wouldn't have it any other way! In the year we were married before we were sealed I was always so scared that something would happen and one of us would tragically die before we were sealed, I must say that once we went to the temple, I was so relieved. Not to say it wouldn't really suck if one of us died, but now I have the comfort and knowledge that if that did happen, we would only be seperated for a little while and then we would be together forever after this life. What a comfort to be sealed in the House of the Lord.
I am grateful to be married to such an amazing man. He has sacrificed a lot for our family and has had to deal with a lot of stress from school and working and internships, and having a kid before we were planning on it, and all kinds of other stuff, but through it all and all the stress, he has always been good to me, and to our son, and for that I am grateful.
Last night as we were laying in bed for an hour before Steve had to leave for work we got a text message from a friend whose spouse had left them. It was so sad. Almost all of the couples that were at our wedding are now divorced, including some of our LDS friends. And this latest one is a dear friend who was sealed in the temple. It is so sad for me to see people not take that covenant seriously. How can you promise to love someone and be with them forever, and then after a year of marriage leave them. Does marriage mean anything to people anymore? Do people not realize what they are signing up for or something? Are their expectations not realistic? I am also grateful that one of the classes I took at BYU was Preparation for Marriage, it may seem cheesy, but that class was one of the best I ever took. It makes you realize what to expect from yourself, your spouse, and the whole institution of marriage. It was fantastic.
So Happy Valentine's Day everyone and Happy Valentine's to my husband (even though I am going to pretend Valentine's Day isn't until Wednesday for him so I feel like a better wife). I did buy him a really cute gift bag already to put his present in, it has a robot on it holding a heart- so cute!
P.S.- I was going to put a couple of cute pictures of Steve and I in here too, but my computer is having some issues accessing my libraries right now. :(