wordsfromanneli

June 25, 2026
by wordsfromanneli 25 Comments

Cottage Cheesecake

One night not too long ago we made pizzas at home. I hope to do another blog post about that in a few days, but for today I want to focus on the cake in the foreground.

One of my cousins made a cake like this for a birthday party several years ago and I liked it so much I’ve been making it ever since. Not all the time, but whenever I get a craving for something really tasty that isn’t nearly as full of calories as it looks.

First, yes, it’s a cherry cheesecake, but it’s not made with fatty cream cheese. It’s made with cottage cheese, and that makes a huge difference.

Here’s what to do:

For the “crust” I use grated Graham wafers. I put them through my food processor and the wafers turn to crumbs in seconds. In the days before I had a food processor, I used to crush the wafers with a rolling pin.

You’ll need one cup of the crushed crumbs. Add a quarter cup of melted butter and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Toss the mixture with a fork and pour it into a pie plate or a springform cake tin with a flat bottom. Press the crumbs down to make a crust.

This is what it looks like when it’s baked in a glass pie plate with the cottage cheese mixture already in it.

Here are the ingredients for the crust:

1 cup Graham wafer crumbs

1/4 cup melted butter

2 Tablespoons of sugar

sprinkle of cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Then in the rinsed out food processor, put in all of the ingredients listed below and mix them with the processor until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Pour the mixture into the prepared crust.

At this point, if you are going to use cherries, use pitted ones, or scoop some out of the can of cherry pie filling and drop a few here and there into the creamy cake filling.

Then put the cake into the oven for one hour.

Here are the ingredients for the filling:

2 cups cottage cheese

1/2 cup of milk

2 eggs

3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2/3 cup (or a bit less) white sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

When the cake is done and the center is no longer liquid, take the cake out of the oven and set aside to cool, and possibly even put it in the fridge once it’s cool enough.

When the cake is chilled, pour the rest of the cherry pie filling on top and spread it around nearly to the edge of the cake.

Whip some cream. I probably use about a cup and a half of whipping cream. To keep the whipping cream from going runny, when it is nearly thick enough with only about 15 to 30 seconds of whipping left to do, I add a teaspoon of powdered sugar, half a tsp. of vanilla, and a scant 1/4 cup of warm water that has about a tsp. of gelatin dissolved in it. It has no flavour, is good for you, but is not noticeable in the whipped cream. That gelatin will help the cream keep its shape on the cake rather than running down all over the cake in a milky water.

I use a tablespoon to put blobs of whipped cream all around the edge of the cake. Then I grate a bit of chocolate onto the whipped cream.

Here is the cake with a pineapple filling on top.

You can use other fruit instead of the cherry pie filling. I’ve used canned cherries and used the juice to make a sauce with a bit of sugar and cornstarch, boiled for a few minutes. Pour the cooled sauce over the cherries and then proceed with putting the whipped cream and chocolate on.

I’ve tried it with crushed pineapple, and I’d like to try it with peaches and cream.

This one that I made today has pineapple topping, whipped cream, a few cherries cut up on top, and some chocolate sprinkles. That’s it. A low-cal cheesecake that is delicious.

I’ll add the pineapple filling recipe here in case you want to use it sometime (made with canned pineapple):

Pineapple Filling

1/2 cup sugar

2 Tbsp. cornstarch

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup orange juice

1/2 cup pineapple juice

2/3 cup crushed pineapple

2 Tbsp. lemon juice

2 Tbsp. butter

1/2 cup coconut

In a saucepan mix sugar and cornstarch; add salt and orange juice and pineapple juice. Cook 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add crushed pineapple and lemon juice. Cook 2 minutes longer. Remove from heat. Stir in butter and coconut. Chill.

*****

What I like best about this dessert is that you don’t come away from the table feeling like you’ve been gut-bombed.

(I guess that’s not very ladylike, but who said I was a lady?)

June 17, 2026
by wordsfromanneli 41 Comments

Robin Rescue

I know this is a blurry picture, but it has a story to it, so if I can beg your indulgence, I’ll tell you what happened.

Yesterday morning, I had our English cocker spaniel, Emma, out for a walk around the yard – on the leash in case Henry (the raccoon) showed up. She stopped to sniff something under one of the hazelnut (filbert) trees. I waited a moment and then I thought, “Oops! I bet she’s found another pile of Glosette Raisins (rabbit poop),” and I pulled her away. I looped her leash around the corner post of the veggie garden and went over to see what was so interesting.

It was a young bird on its back (which is never a good sign), and I tried to turn it over to see what kind of bird it was. As I nudged it, it opened its beak wide as if to cry out, but no sound came out. I thought, “Oh, the poor thing! It’s going to die out here in the grass. Not enough wing feathers to fly yet and not enough strength to cry out.”

I brought Emma into the house and looked for the Captain to tell him about the poor little bird. I couldn’t find the Captain right away so I took a picture of the bird. It was a l-o-n-g distance, hurried shot from the house deck way out to the front yard, but I got a fuzzy semblance of the bird. BUT, it had TURNED OVER. So maybe it wasn’t ready to die yet.

Next question: How did it get there?

I looked for a nest nearby. The most obvious answer would be the filbert tree overhead.

Yes, there was a nest. I could see only one other face looking over the edge. As I picked up the fallen bird’s tiny body, I could feel that it was still warm. I reached up to put it in the nest. It clung to my finger and gave it a squeeze as if to say, “Thank you.” Or maybe it was saying, “For God’s sake, please don’t drop me!”

The picture below was taken the next day, and shows the other baby robin that was in the nest. I still didn’t know if the fallen-angel robin had made it.

So I took my cellphone and reached up to try to get a picture of the inside of the nest. I couldn’t quite reach, but as my hand got near the nest, two baby robins perked up and so did both parents who had been foraging for food nearby. They came in like two mini fighter jets in defense mode.

Turn on the sound to get a sense of their alarm as I told them to “Smile please!”

For sure I was smiling when I saw that both babies were alive and well.

June 14, 2026
by wordsfromanneli 42 Comments

Poppies Again

On the back part of our property, I have a little rectangle of dirt for growing potatoes and sometimes squash. But as you can see, I have the same problem happening here. The poppies came to live here and seem to like it. I did not plant them; not on purpose anyway. The seeds are in the soil I move around the yard and these flowers pop up everywhere. Behind this first batch you can see my poor potatoes trying to survive our heat wave.

Plain red with dark centers, fluffy red, and some mauvish purplish ones – they all seem to get along together.

Kurly Kate likes to show off all her petals. The rest of the poppies are so envious of her curls.

This red one tried to be a curly one but didn’t quite make it. Let’s call it wavy hair, if not so curly.

I see a face in this one, below. In the center I see her left eye looking like a yellow star. Some other flower might have “popped” her one. If you see the light coloured left eye, you can see the smaller right eye looking right at you, with a yellow iris and a dark pupil. Her lips look like a chicken’s bill. She’s wearing a big red bonnet, and she has some bangs on her forehead. Looks like she’s wearing headphones but we can only see the one by her left ear. (Don’t be confused by right and left. It’s HER right, and HER left that I’m referring to.)

And last of all, I admit to being surprised at these two photos of purplish poppies. I didn’t realize that they are two quite different colours. The first one (below) is more purple, and the next ones below that photo, are more of a burgundy colour.

I had two more pretty colours, but the pictures were blurry, so maybe next time, I’ll try again. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, thanks for popping by!

June 13, 2026
by wordsfromanneli 26 Comments

Oh, Henry!

Henry is back again, and once again, in broad daylight. This is the part that worries me. If he is confident enough to make himself at home in the middle of the day, where does that leave us? Can I still feel okay about letting our Emma outside to run around in her fenced yard?

Here’s Henry coming from the woodshed where he had a drink of water that I had put out for the squirrels. He’s heading straight for our house.

In the first video he comes right to where I have the wheelbarrow in front of my veggie garden, which is in front of the house. In the second one he continues on to the trees on the other side of our deck. He was so close to the house I had to stop the first video, run to the other end of the deck and start the second video.

Here he is already up pretty high, but he keeps going up on the back of the tree until he gets to a big branch where he has a place big enough to stop for another nap, as he’s in the habit of doing in the daytime. He’s safe up there and has a lovely view.

But I’m going to have to start charging him rent, and maybe a playground fee.

June 8, 2026
by wordsfromanneli 42 Comments

Poppies Pop Up

A few years ago, I planted a couple of poppies in my garden.

Now, if I don’t make an effort to get rid of them, they try to take over.

So … I let them.

Poppies pop up everywhere,

Brightening the world,

Taking every space they dare,

Their beauty is unfurled.

June 6, 2026
by wordsfromanneli 41 Comments

Baby Squirrel

One baby squirrel showed up today. There may be more, but I suspect that there was only one this year. I think they would have all come out together like they did in the new family of squirrels a couple of years ago.

No name yet for Junior, but some idea will come up.

Whatcha eatin’, Mom?

Hazelnuts, Junior. Watch! This is how you do it.

Junior’s full of energy,

Zipping right along,

Though he still is quite naive,

Can’t tell right from wrong.

Mother squirrel teaches him,

What’s okay to eat,

Showing him the way to get

All that good nutmeat.

June 2, 2026
by wordsfromanneli 26 Comments

Henry’s Return

Henry knows all the comfy seats up high in the fir trees. It was time to get off ground level. So many dogs were being walked in the nearby path. Up he climbed until he needed a break from the exertion. Just in time, he found his cot in a high-up perch and lay down for a midday nap.

I think I see an eye. I definitely see his right front foot. Count his fingers! His right (?) back foot is sticking up into the air. Apparently his bed is too small for him.

And of course there is the telltale-tail….

The climb was tough,

I’m high enough,

I’m safe up here,

And when I peer

Across the bay,

I have to say,

It’s work to do,

But what a view.

May 30, 2026
by wordsfromanneli 26 Comments

Breakfast with Crispin

I was baking this morning and wanted to put some walnuts into my banana loaf. I found them in the freezer next to a big bag of hazelnuts from last year’s harvest.

Should I substitute hazelnuts for the walnuts? Crispin would like some, I’m sure. So I used the walnuts for baking and put some hazelnuts out in the woodshed for Crispin.

He loves them! See how he gets right into it?

“These are so yummy. Who would have thought I’d get a taste of hazelnuts before this year’s crop is ripe?”