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I love cheese. I love it so much that I used to buy bars and slice it, or maybe grate it, or both, and nibble while I watch TV/DVD. And here’s a little secret. When right time to get married came up, you know how I choose my wife? I made her make me a cheesecake first . Because my then-girlfriend-and-now-wife didn’t know how on earth does one make a cheesecake, she asked an “older” officemate for a recipe. The big day came when she tried making it herself. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as successful as we all had hoped. But she never gave up and tried it again. This time to great success. She has since then altered the recipe to something of her own and to the glorious kinds of cheesecake (blueberry or oreo, anyone?) that we now enjoy.

But while glorious as it is, I craved for something much more pure, and/or perfect. 100% pure cheesecake, that is. And I found it. Ok, technically, Lori found it, and then I found her site . Ok. Moving on. As Lori of Dessert Comes First said:

The perfect cheesecake is tall, dense, and heavy. When you place a forkful into your mouth, the silkiness of the cheese rolls languorously on your tongue, leaving a velvety-smooth path as it melts, languidly coursing down your throat.

Now that’s what I call food porn! I just love the way she said it. She even went as far as experimenting for ages until she found the right recipe, which she fortunately shared. We’ve had this recipe for quite some time now and I was having second thoughts sharing, it is after all THE BEST cheesecake I’ve had so far.

So here’s her recipe to a champion cheesecake.

2 cups crushed graham cracker crumbs

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup margarine or butter, melted

2 (8-oz.) packages cream cheese, softened

1 can condensed milk (I like Alaska Condensada because it doesn’t leave a “milky” aftertaste)

3 eggs

juice of 2 calamansi or 2 tsps. lemon juice (if available)

Preheat oven to 300ºF. Combine crumbs, sugar and margarine; press firmly on bottom of 9-inch springform pan. Bake for 10 minutes. Set aside.

With mixer, beat cream cheese in large bowl until fluffy. Gradually beat in condensed milk until smooth. Add eggs and calamansi or lemon juice. Mix well.

Pour into prepared pan — it doesn’t matter if crust is still warm. Bake 50 to 55 minutes or until center is slightly jiggly but perimeter is set. Cool 1 hour. Chill at least 4 hours to let flavors develop. Will keep in refrigerator for two weeks (but do you really think it will last that long?)

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Photo and recipe from Dessert Comes First. Visit her site for more tips and yummy goodies.

Perhaps one of our (me and my wife’s) favorite bloggers is Mai da Paypay because most of her dishes look easy and delicious. I’ve written about her pan-fried salmon with caramelized garlic and salmon with basil cream sauce in my old blog here and her onion soup that my wife tweaked here (i.ph is going clunkers at the moment so I don’t know if the links work, but do try anyway). And while she’s currently missing in action (MIA), my wife still browses her site for food inspirations.

The other day (Tuesday), we were yet again at a loss as what to have for dinner. Fed up from having chicken and pork the previous days, we were looking for fish provedores with an excellent variety of fish so that dinner inspiration would slap us in the face. While we were at the market, my wife spied some live freshwater tilapia and was able to get four medium-sized pieces for 80 pesos. Nothing embodies freshness more than live kicking fish, even after being gutted and cleaned! In fact, it was still kicking while we were going around the market.

I swear, this site is slowly turning into a recipe/food site with some techie stuff thrown in. See the recipe as adapted from Mai’s site after the jump.

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Ever since I saw this recipe (and that photo) I’ve had this urge to try it for myself. I had this feeling that I can make and will like it. It does look good, doesn’t it? It kinda reminds me of that Banana Leaf resto in Greenbelt 1 long ago. So one day, a couple of weeks ago, I got to cook real food.

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