Simply Soares

It's been one CRAZY, LONG day...

It started before the sun came up this morning, as it was Garage Sale Sat around here. We have garage sales about once a month here... it's AMAZING how much stuff accumulates in just 30 short days. So, any who, we were up with the sun this morning getting ready. The good news is that there were 5 of us getting ready so it went quickly and we were ready at 7 am, the bad news is that having everyone working around threw Nathaniel off of his schedule, and that is a VERY BAD thing! We had Mr. OCD, Mr. Easily Set Off, and Mr HUGE Tantrums this morning... with all of those strangers in my front yard. But we did GREAT in the GS today, so that felt good too :)

On of the nice bonuses to GSing is that I get a jump start on my Sunday chores! And since we were REALLY BLESSED with TONS of groceries this week, a jump start on chores was a good thing! Faline and I we able to chop 5 bell peppers, 2 onions, a bunch of radishes, a couple green onions, a head of Bach Choy and 3 egg plants for easy to assemble meals this coming week.

We also attacked the HUGE grocery bag FULL of Key Limes. I *LOVE* Key Lime Cheesecake and Key Lime Pie.... but this was a bit many fruits. A few weeks ago, my good friend D blogged about making homemade Key Lime Cheesecake from a bag of Key Limes she had received. You can check it out here. It's a really funny post, but the she is right, the hardest part about Key Limes is juicing them. They are little TINY buggers, and they are kinda stingy with their juice. But a co-worker of mine let me in on a trick this week.... read on D, it's life changing!! You see, you have to flash boil before squeezing them. Pan of boiling water, drop the key limes in for 2 minutes, then drain in.. while they are still warm puncture a hole in the skin and squeeze. It's amazing how much more juice you get!!

I forgot to count how many baggies of these things we had, but this was the third pail of skins we had! That's a lot of key limes, in case you were wondering!

Look at all those empty little skins.... they gave us lots of juice...

12 Cups of juice to be exact....

12 Cups of fresh Key Lime juice...

Now I need lots of recipes for that!
Feel free to leave you favorite Key Lime recipe in the comments!!

Since there was no way I could use all of that before it went bad, we froze it in Ziplocs so I have fresh juice whenever I want!

But of course I had to use some today, so I baked a Key Lime Cheesecake! Doesn't that look divine??




If you would like to make one here is the recipe:

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups finely ground graham cracker crumbs
2 tablespoons white sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

3 - 8 ounce boxes cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
1 cup sour cream
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 eggs
1/3 cup key lime juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

1. To make Crust: In a bowl stir together the graham cracker crumbs and 2 tablespoons sugar, stir in the butter well. Pat the mixture into the bottom and 1/2 inch up the side of a buttered 10 inch springform pan and bake the crust in a preheated 375 degree F (190 degree C) oven for 8 minutes. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool.

2. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and 3/4 cup sugar until smooth, beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the sour cream, flour, lime juice and vanilla. Beat the mixture until it is smooth.

3.Pour the filling over the crust. Bake the cheesecake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, reduce the temperature to 250 degrees F (120 degrees C) and bake for 50 to 55 minutes longer, or until center is barely set. Let the cheesecake cool on a rack, then chill it, covered, overnight. Remove the cheesecake from the pan and transfer it to a cake stand.

After playing with the key limes, and making a pitcher of fresh squeezed orange juice, and squeezing enough lemons of 3 batches of lemonade, we had to clean up from the GS... and unfortunately there was a fair amount left over... guess we will try again in the next week or so! Anyways, went we were cleaning up we got a bit creative..

This is a shot into the front of my garage...
Notice anything interesting about it??
(other than my messy garage!)


Yup, that is Josie in there...
behind all the clothes...
and behind the piano...

We don't need her this week, right??

Andrew doesn't know that is the broken piano...

Opps, here she comes over the top...

Guess it will take more than that to trap her...

And, yes, she is still in her pjs ...

and it was after 2 pm!

And this was Josie getting creative with the loads to the car..

That is a rolling clothes rack from the store that she is using to move the boxes to my car! And the car was only parked at the next door neighbors house!

After all of this fun, we headed to BB to finish the day and total out. Then it was back home to actually cook dinner...

Can you blame me for being in bed already with that busy day??

But it was lots of fun, and a sample of what is to come in a few weeks when summer gets here.... all 5 kids (yes, I think Andrew will be around quiet a bit), all day.... day after day after day...

Fun!

Blessings!