Sorry for the unseasonable time of this post, but it has been on my mind to share.
One of my passions is baking, specifically cheesecake. Not having enough time, due to the amount of love and time that goes into creating this delight, my baking has been delayed.
My latest creation was a pumpkin apple cheesecake. It was an idea that formed a few years back. It was my third attempt at making pumpkin apple cheesecake, and it turned out perfect. Presentation, although I failed to capture the moment (you’ll have to trust me), and taste. All who partook wanted more.
I share this masterpiece with you now. You may want to wait until the proper season or rebel against norms and try your hand at it now. Do let me know how it turns out, nonetheless.
Recipe from start to finish:
Sugar cookie crust
Ingredients:
1 stick of butter softened
½ cup sugar
1 1/4 cup flour
2 tsp cinnamon
Step 1
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees c). In a bowl, mix butter, sugar, flour, cinnamon and mix.
Step 2
Press into buttered spring-form pan. Only butter bottom of spring-form for now, as we will need to butter sides prior to next layer going in. Bake 8–10 minutes, remove and cool.
Optional: put baking parchment at bottom of springform pan and cut remaining from outer edges. My preferred method.
Step 3
While cookie crust is cooling, combine pumpkin apple cheesecake Ingredients.
Cheesecake Layer
Ingredients:
4 pkgs softened cream cheese
4 eggs
1 c sugar
1 small can pumpkin pie puree
1 tsp vanilla
2 royal gala apples skinned, sliced and chopped
Step 1
Add to mixing bowl: cream cheese, eggs, sugar, pumpkin puree and vanilla. Mix on low until nice and creamy. Turn down oven temp to 325 degrees F (163 degrees C). Triple aluminum coat outer spring-form pan
Step 2
While cheesecake is mixing, butter sides of cool spring-form pan. Pour batter into pan, bake for 1 ½ hours at 325 degrees F. Using water bath is favored method to avoid cracking with water level ½ ¾ way up sides of inner baking pan. Line outside of springform pan with three layers of aluminum foil.
Crack door to broil position, let cool for an hour slowly.
Remove from oven, remove aluminum and chill for four hours minimum. Easiest if overnight in fridge
Optional Frosting
Ingredients:
1 pkg softened cream cheese
½ cup powdered sugar
½ stick of softened butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
Bon appetit!
Much gratitude for those who take time to read, ponder, and allow the inner workings of self to come forward. Grateful for the feedback, love shared, and, more importantly, the Dance with Inspiration. Deep Peace.
Have you ever been on vacation or traveled away from your community, where you have met someone and felt like you have known them for quite some time? Chances are you have not been in this lifetime but in an earlier life or one before.
Never believing in reincarnation or past lives, I found reading about people recounting past lives in different bodies and often different genders or races difficult.
Dr. Brian Weiss has done extensive research on Regression Therapy. Regression Therapy is a Psychological Study of past lives. His most famous patient, Catherine, walked Dr. Weiss through over two hundred past lives while in a hypnotic state. Her consciousness was brought to a level of the Akashic Records, a place of consciousness where all people store all thoughts and memories. The question is not how she got to this place, but the question is whether her memories were hers or someone else. Making no difference, we focus on her recollections of past lives, detailing events that actually happened and were extensively documented.
Our memories…are they ours or someone else? Are they individual memory or is it a collective whole? Again, that not being an important thought here, but an idea of recounting past life. If everything is thought and we are all connected, then everyone shares this consciousness, making us one thought, one mind.
One thought, One mind.
When we meet someone for the first time, a feeling we have met before, chances are we have in a past life or a memory stored within the Akashic Records. The significance of our meetings is similar paths we have chosen. It is often said that our paths often cross many times within multitudes of lifetimes.
Recently Oljita was traveling to foreign lands when he ran into a traveling man. The traveler was not from the area, but the two had a strong connection. His speech was of a different tongue, but his mannerisms were similar to Oljita’s. After sharing a conversation, they realized they were true, descendants of the same family and both were on the path other great Warriors have taken.
Meeting on the same level allowed these two strangers to come together collectively, only to discover they were indeed related.
In a flash, Oljita was taken back one thousand years, to a time of turmoil and rule. He found himself in darkened times where he was knighted, under the rule of a King. He recalled the traveling man being there as well, fighting together for the greater good of the people. Their main goal was to restore peace throughout the land while remaining loyal to the King.
These elite Warriors were very efficient at restoring peace and serving justice, authorized by the King “whatever means necessary.”
With the death of their King, a successor was appointed. The Knights were strong in numbers and grew far more powerful than the King himself. The successor needed to have the people’s best interest in mind. Instead began taking back land rights.
Stripping farmers and landholders’ rights to the land given to them by previous Kings. The King further Taxed the farmers on the land they used, causing great hardship. The Warriors did not rest easy with the changes at hand and began rebelling against the King, maintaining their loyalties to past leadership and being interested only in making things right for the common people.
The King did not like this and laid an executive order to execute all Warriors simultaneously on an appointed day. That day was the thirteenth of October in the year Thirteen Hundred and Fourteen. It was the largest massacre in history; tens of thousands were killed within a few hours.
Oljita recalls being aside the traveling man, fighting for the people, only to have witnessed his friend executed at the order of the King. Watching his friend go limp with no life remaining, Oljita vowed to fight, for all eternity, those lost and scared, seeking higher ground…no matter the price. That day Oljita and the traveling man gave their lives fighting for the common people of their time, and when they both returned to the present time, they remembered.
Embracing each other, shedding tears of joy, they both wept for the battles they fought. When the Traveler asked Oljita if he would do it all over again, Oljita replied…”I never stopped fighting for the greater good.” The Traveler smiled, knowing they have both been battling darkness for all eternity and Shedding Light on the darkened path. They part, saying goodbye as if they were back in ancient times.
Oljita: “Good day to you, Brother!”
traveling Man: “And to you Brother, May God shine upon you all the days of your Life.”
Oljita: “May it shine Brighter for you.”
Next time you meet someone on the same wavelength, know that you may have met before. We find common ground with strangers, as Oljita found in a single handshake. From stranger to Brother in a single moment.
Stepping into the Canvas, seeing all as Brother or Sister. There are no strangers, only friends we haven’t met. Elevating to this level, we instinctively bless all we meet. Encouraging those around us, contributing to their growth and self-worth, and allowing them to master their fate.
~Ani Po
Much gratitude for those who take time to read, ponder, and allow the inner workings of self to come forward. Grateful for the feedback, love shared, and, more importantly, the Dance with Inspiration. Deep Peace.
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