Grandma's Italian Cheesecake

I don't love cheesecake. I find it to be too heavy, which is odd because I love cream cheese. However, I didn't really know growing up that I didn't like typical cheesecake because I was fortunate enough to experience my Grandma's Italian cheesecake. She tweaked and edited this recipe with her sister until it was perfect, and let me tell you: it is perfect. It is light and fluffy, yet still creamy.

This cake is also not cheap. I think the ingredients cost me about $15 to make for our egg hunt party. However, it serves quite a few. After feeding nineteen people plus a baby who eats a lot, I had about 1/3 of the cake left!

My egg system was to keep the egg shells until I was done cracking and separating so I would not lose count

Ingredients:
2 pie crusts (I use Pillsbury)
2 lb ricotta (I use Polly-O)
15 egg yolks, well beaten (yes, I really do mean 15 - see picture above)
2 c sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
4 tbsp cornstarch
1 qt whipping cream (Grandma uses coffee cream, but it is not always easy to find)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees
2. Press the pie crusts into a 9x13 pan. The crust should go up to almost the top of the pan (overlap is okay)
3. Drain ricotta if it is too watery. Polly-O is usually fine without this step.
4. Mix together the sugar, cinnamon, and corn starch in small bowl.
5. Beat your egg yolks in a very large bowl.
6. Mix the dry ingredients into the egg yolks. It will be very sloshy.
7. Mix the cream into the large bowl.
8. Pour mixture (still very sloshy) into the prepared pan.
9. Bake at 450 for 15 minutes.
10. Without removing the cake from the oven, decrease temperature to 350 and bake for 1 hour.
11. If the center is still super wiggly when removed from the oven, bake for another 15 minutes. A toothpick should come mostly clean, but wiggling is the best indicator. A bit of wiggling is good, a lot is not.

I'm serious about the bowl being large

The batter fills up the pan entirely

This is a great cake to make for large groups but I also like having it for smaller groups because then you have leftovers. Yum! Do you have a favorite family recipe that is very different from what you find in restaurants? We would love to hear about it!

2014 Goal Updates

It's that time again where I publicly proclaim how well (or not so well) I am working towards my 2014 goals.

Beauty: I have not tried anything new recently in this category. Oh well, maybe next month?

Health: Still love zumba, still love fresh produce! J bought half a 5 gallon bucket full of juice oranges (for $4) so I made fresh citrus chicken and asparagus one night. It was really yummy! Summer is very quickly heading towards Florida, so I won't have as many locally grown options in the coming months but I will still make an effort to eat lots of produce anyway.

Finance: Our company has grown a bit, which is great news! We are very quickly covering our living expenses for the year, but that also means we are considering increasing our spending habits a bit. Obviously not by too much, because business owners don't have a guaranteed pay check. By the way, I had to rely on spell check to get "guaranteed" right. Perhaps I should reevaluate my intellectual goals. On that note, I am learning quite a bit about accounting through using quickbooks and google searching everything before I input. I never considered accounting as a career, and I certainly don't regret that decision. This task is one of the things that will be passed on to a more suitable person if we ever expand to the point that I can't input our monthly data in less than an hour.

Spiritual: I went to church last Sunday! Of course, it was Easter so practically everyone who has any inkling to attend church was there on Sunday.

Creative: Did y'all notice I actually finished a project? Like for real, it is 100% done (minus a slight repair - don't let things roll around in your back seat). What is done, you ask? My thrift store lamp! It would make me so happy if y'all checked it out and tossed out a few compliments (or not so complimentary opinions, I don't offend easily). Maybe if I get enough positive reinforcement I will tackle some of my unfinished (i.e. unstarted) projects. On another creative note, Melinda has been making her own flower arrangements using grocery store flowers so I feel like I am more creative through her endeavors. That's how this cousin thing works. My favorite arrangement so far is when she used her low vase.

Intellectual: I have lost count of how many books I have finished, but it is more than one per month. Yay! I used to read so much but I have a lot less time now that I am not 12 years old. I am also continuously learning from my dad about how to run a business. So much goes into every decision! He will be going on a sailing trip for a few weeks this month, so I will be making lots of decisions on my own. Very exciting! I am also working on my photo editing skills. Could you tell? There is quite a bit of room for improvement.

Blog: Melinda came up with a new series called $15 happiness and I just love it! The idea is that sometimes little things are all it takes to brighten your day. While we don't believe material things can make you truly happy, Melinda and I both find enjoyment in a new bottle of nail polish. And as always, I love writing about thrift store finds. One day (when I don't live in this teeny tiny apartment) I will photograph all my furniture and source each item. I predict over 50% will be thrifted while 5-10% from Restoration Hardware. The rest, who knows?

Pinterest Personalized for You

I just discovered that Tech Crunch included this post in their review of Pinterest's personalization feature. After reading it, I realized I may have not been clear in my original post (found below). When I said I have no "personal interest" in the coffee body scrub, I simply meant I myself don't care to use it. The research I mentioned was performed because I wanted to make the scrub for my sisters-in-law. You may have already read about how I made that scrub. My overall point is that Pinterest prioritized many things that I do not spend much, if any time, searching or pinning.


I got a notification from Pinterest yesterday about a new feature. There is a new category for browsing called "Personalized for You" and is located with all the other categories like Popular, Weddings, etc. I have ignored Pinterest's previous updates like maps and whatever else they have done recently, but I decided to check this one out. For those of you who haven't seen it yet, I have included a screenshot of the page that came up for me. Please ignore my crazy bookmarks. I don't clean them up ever.

First thing I noticed was the coffee body scrub section right in the middle of the top row. I have no personal interest in coffee body scrubs, but I guess Pinterest assumed I do because I did some research leading up to making the coffee body scrub gifts and then pinned my own article (shameless self promotion). The second thing I noticed was the gloves section, which I suppose came from my beaded glove project because I have never searched for gloves otherwise. The thrift store section was interesting and more in line with my interests. I clicked on it and it just seemed to pull up a bunch of pins as if I had searched "thrift stores," so I am not sure it has added any value to my Pinterest experience. More exploring could change my mind, however.

I really am not a cocktail party, but my pin from my What to Wear to a Christmas Cocktail party is featured on the right side. The doily art is amusing to me, because I know it came from gift ideas research, as did the wine decanter segment. And I don't think I have ever searched for gold kitchens, but I know I have searched those words separately. Overall, I think Pinterest could improve their algorithms for this personalization feature but for now it doesn't add much to my life. Have y'all tried it out yet? We would love to hear other opinions!

Melinda is on Vacation!

Melinda escaped dreary DC for the Derby, and she is seeing a bit of Tennessee on the way. Thanks to social media, we can all live vicariously through her vacation. Melinda is instagramming her travels. Right now she is at the Grand Ole Oprey!



 Posh Purpose has been slowly venturing into the realm of social media. I manage our twitter account while Melinda handles instagram. We also have a google+ account for those who find value in it. But our favorite is Bloglovin', a website which keeps you up to date on all the new posts from blogs you follow. I use Bloglovin' every day and would love for you to try it out! We don't gain any money or perks from it; we just benefit by y'all never missing one of our posts by following us!

Thrift Store Finds

I really enjoyed reading about Melinda's Easter potluck! I am so sad that I always miss out on her great parties. Have you noticed she has been working on her new hobby of flower arrangements? You should check out how she used grocery store flowers in bud vases and a low vase arrangement. 

Now it is time for my favorite post: thrift store finds! I am thrilled to announce that we have finally reached the last of our finds from Melinda's spring break, which means I have an excuse to visit the thrift stores more often than I already do! 

As I am looking at these pictures again, I apologize for the terrible angles. Sometimes Habitat is just so full of treasures that I can't always get a good view. This end table is $40 and has the coolest legs and hardware. It was a good size too. By now, it should have a new home that is much cleaner than Habitat.

Mom grabbed four (or six? can't remember) of these folding card table chairs. The price tag said $8 each, but our good friend marked them down to $5 each. Mom loves having extra card tables and chairs for family events and church parties. She actually owns enough seating for our whole choir - over 50 people! The stamp on the bottom is really neat and shows the chairs are from 1958 from what we could read. Vintage! Or is that antique now? I haven't researched the stamp yet, but it is on my list of things to do.

I am now a thrilled owner of this coffee table and matching end table. The coffee table is huge! Which is great, because my couch is 8ft long. Of course, it does not fit in my teeny tiny apartment so mom is storing it for me until I get more space. The price tag says $80 for the set, but again our friends gave me a great deal of $50! How could I say no? I will try to clean up the cane and see if that brightens the piece up enough. If not, I may paint it. But first, I will wait until I have space to actually use it. I can't wait!

Hi J! This china hutch is sooo cool. The price is $95, but the thing was still sitting there last time I visited so I would imagine our friends at Habitat would decrease it for an enthusiastic buyer. The hardware is my favorite and the drawers are dovetailed. I considered buying it the same day as my tables, but I figured three pieces of furniture stored by my mother was more than enough (she also has a huge dresser/sideboard/whatever in storage for me). Good thing I have her. Otherwise, I would not have any space to walk in my apartment and J would have to find other living quarters!

Want to see our other thrift store finds? Click here!