Dessert Blast From the Past

I don't know if you're like me or my family, but do you ever go through food phases? You know, where you have a favorite side dish that you make all the time...or a go-to dinner that you make quite frequently. Then suddenly, you're on to a new favorite side dish or go-to dinner and your old favorite somehow gets forgotten.

Well, the dessert that I am going to share tonight is one that I remember my Mom making quite frequently when I was a kid...and then suddenly it wasn't the go-to dessert anymore and it got forgotten for years. I ran across this recipe and realized that we needed to add it to the blog. It's such a nostalgic dessert to me. In addition to that, it's delicious, easy to make, and the topping can be altered to suit different tastes.

The dessert is...drum roll, please...Debbie's Easy No-Bake Cheesecake. Yummy! Is it time for dessert yet?

Debbie's Easy No-Bake Cheesecake

Ingredients:

1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups whipping cream
1 graham cracker pie crust
1 can favorite pie filling (such as blueberry or cherry)

Directions:

Blend together cream cheese, sugar, sour cream, and vanilla. Whip 2 cups whipping cream and sweeten to taste with sugar. Combine whipping cream and cream cheese mixture. Pour into graham cracker crust. Freeze at least 1/2 hour before serving. Top with pie filling of choice.

Source: I don't know who this Debbie person is or where my Mom found this recipe. But it's a good one!

I actually found two versions of this recipe. Here is the earlier version that I found:

Earlier Version of Debbie's Easy No-Bake Cheesecake

Ingredients:

1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese
1/4 cup sugar
1 pkg. Dream Whip or 2 cups Cool Whip
1 graham cracker pie crust
1 (21 oz) can cherry pie filling (or favorite pie filling)

Directions:

Cream cheese and sugar together. Mix in Dream Whip or Cool Whip. Pour into crust and freeze for 2 hours. move to refrigerator and when ready to serve, top with pie filling.

Source: Granger South Second Ward Cookbook...from long, long ago (before I was born, I think).

Notes: I found it interesting that I discovered two recipes submitted by the same person (whose name I forgot to note) but that the recipe had evolved. I guess we learn from that that recipes can evolve over time. We can also learn that if you don't have all of the ingredients or you have similar ingredients, you should feel free to add, omit, or substitute ingredients to get a similar result. Obviously, you can't do this with ALL ingredients...because after all, if you don't have cream cheese, it won't really be cheesecake.

I personally like this cheesecake with blueberry, cherry, or raspberry pie filling. But you can really top it with anything you want. You could use peach or apple pie filling, leave it plain, top it with caramel sauce...be creative!