Protein Peanut Butter Balls

• 1/2 cup peanut butter (I used Whole Foods peanut butter, the kind that is just ground peanuts and is actually very dry. Next time I'll probably use an oilier peanut butter or add oil myself.)
  
• 1/2 cup protein powder (I used herbalife because I was given a ton of it for free)
  
• 1/3 cup oatmeal
  
• 1/4 cup honey & agave - I think I prefer honey, but I was getting low so I used some agave syrup too
  
• a little soy milk, if too dry (or water or milk, whatever)
  
• 1 t vanilla extract

Mix together ingredients with hands. The dough may be a little dry, but if you can make it into balls, you're fine. If not, add liquid. Form dough into balls and put in the fridge.

Caipirissimas! By the pitcher!

So, my new fave drink is the caipirinha or caipirissima followed closely by the caipiroska, the pisco sour and the mojito.

A caipirinha is a Brazilian drink usually made of four ingredients: limes, sugar, ice, cachaza.
A caipirissima is an adaptation that substitutes the cachaza for rum - a very good idea if you don't know much about cachaza or if its over-priced. Like here in Portland 54 is like 20 bucks a bottle. Cough, cough!
A caipiroska substitutes vodka for the cachaza.

The problem with all these caipir- drinks is they are a lot of work to prepare. I cut the limes into pieces and squeeze the juice into a glass with sugar. One regular size lime, or four key limes per glass. Then I put crushed ice in the glass, and then pour in an ounce of booze. All the lime-squeezing makes for a lot of work, and round two is a bit of a pain in the butt cause you have to do the whole process all over again.

I think I've found a short cut. So I looked up making a pitcher of caipirissimas on the internet, which isn't a bad idea, buuuuut, I like to be in total control of the amount of liquor that goes into my body. If you're pouring from a pitcher, it's hard to say how much rum you're getting. Soooo... before people came over for my bday, I grabbed a medium-sized mixing bowl, and poured about a 1-1.5 cups of organic cane sugar into it. (It's the sugar I had on hand. Regular white sugar should work fine.) Then I cut 8 limes into 4 pieces each and squeezed them into the bowl on top of the sugar and then threw the lime pieces into the bowl as well. (For the uninitiated, the lime pieces are part of the drink.) The lime juice partially dissolved the cane sugar to make a nice little syrup. I just let the limes, lime juice and sugar sit until the guests arrived, maybe an hour. And then I served a couple rounds and there was definitely enough for like 12 drinks. Because 6 of us had two drinks, so on the second round, I just added syrup and one or two lime pieces, because the glass is already chock-full of them. I even ended up with some left-over syrup and lime pieces so I'm saving them for a mid-week caipirissima. And I might make my own lemon soda with the leftover syrup as well.

CAIPIRISSIMA RECIPE, EN MASSE

So here's the way to prepare, let's say 12 caipir-drinks.

Put in medium-sized mixing bowl:

• 1.5 cups of sugar

Cut into quarters, squeeze juice into bowl, and throw peel in bowl too:

• 8 regular limes (or 32 key limes, halved)

Let lime juice, limes and sugar sit for a bit, if possible.

When ready to prepare drinks, grab low-ball glass, put about 2 to 3 tablespoons of syrup in glass and 4 lime pieces. On top of that, put:

• crushed ice

Then add:

• rum (or cachaza or vodka), 1-2 ounces

I'm a lightweight, so I just put in one ounce of rum. Plus that way I can have twice as many drinks without blacking out, hahaha.

Cheesecake

Cheesecake.
Yummy.
I've made two cheesecakes in my life. One for my 30th bday partay, and then one for my 31st bday partay. They both turned out smashingly. hehehe. When I went to do it this year again, I didn't have last year's recipe :( So I had to look up some online recipes and kind of guess which one was going to be good. Soooo... it turned out quite well and I'm going to post it for next year's go round

This recipe makes one huge 8.5" by 12.5" cheese cake of normal thickness, or perhaps a few millimeters thicker.

Graham Cracker Crust

Melt:

• 2/3 cup butter

Stir in:

• 2 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1/2 cup ground walnuts

Pat into pan.

Cheesecake

Blend until smooth:

• 3 lbs cream cheese

Blend until smooth in a separate bowl:

• 1/2 t salt
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 6 eggs
• 2 t lemon or lime juice

Blend cream cheese and egg/sugar mixture together until well mixed. Bake at 350 F for an 40 mins - to an hour. The cheesecake is done when it's puffed around the edges but the center is slightly moist and jiggly, or at least that's what they say on the internet. (Mine was puffed around the edges AND in the middle, and the top was getting golden and was about to start burning on top. Yikes! I think my oven bakes a lot hotter than it says. The recipe said to cook an hour, but the cheesecake was ready in 40 minutes.