A Simple Cheesecake and Bonus Lentil Burgers

I wanted to have something sweet and not low-calorie for dessert tonight - when you're dieting it's good to splurge every now and then or you'll feel deprived. I had some cream cheese in the refrigerator, and decided on a cheesecake. This recipe is from a Mennonite cookbook I have, called the More-With-Less Cookbook - it's very simple, nothing fancy, but it satisfied my sweet tooth wonderfully!


Cheesecake
2 eggs
8 oz. cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup dry milk solids (powdered milk)
2 tsp. vanilla
1-2 tbsp. lemon juice
1 8" graham cracker crust (I used a 9" crust, and my cheesecake came out rather thin, so I suggest using the 8" crust)

Preheat oven to 375, and prepare your graham cracker crust.

Combine eggs, cream cheese, sugar, dry milk, vanilla, and lemon juice. Mix well with electric mixer, scraping bowl with rubber spatula often. Pour into crust and bake 30 minutes. Cool for 1 hour. Add topping, if desired, and chill.

I left mine topping-less, but here are the topping options given:
-Combine 1 cup yogurt or sour cream, 2 tbsp. sugar, 1 tbsp. vanilla, 1 tsp. cinnamon, and 1/4 tsp. nutmeg.
-Add drained strawberries, pineapple, peaches, cherries, blueberries, or nuts to yogurt or sour cream topping.
-Thicken any of above fruits with cornstarch and use as a topping.


As a bonus, here's the recipe we used for dinner tonight, from the same cookbook. This one is healthy and low-calorie.


Lentil Burgers
2 cups cooked, cooled lentils, drained
1 egg
1/2 cup cracker crumbs
1 small onion, minced
Tomato juice (I didn't have tomato juice, so I smushed up some canned diced tomatoes instead)
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together using just enough tomato juice to hold mixture in shape when pattied. Fry like hamburgers in small amount hot oil, shortening, or bacon fat.

That's the exact wording in the book. Mine never really would hold its shape if I tried to form it into patties with my hands, so I just spooned it into pattie shapes onto the skillet. They held their shapes if I turned them very carefully, but they were fairly crumbly. That said, they had a very good taste, and I wouldn't be opposed to making them again. Still, I think I prefered the pumpkin chickpea burgers I made a while back. While I love real hamburgers, I also like making meatless burgers - there are so many varieties that you can make! There's a recipe for black bean burgers that I've got my eye on, it actually looks almost like real ground beef.