This past weekend was my son-in-law’s birthday. It still sounds funny to me to say “my son-in-law.” It’s even funnier to say “my daughter’s husband.”

One of the best things for me about Parker is that he likes to eat, and since I love to cook, this works out for both us. Parker’s request every time he comes to stay is pancakes for breakfast, and he always seems so surprised when I make them. But I have a secret. Of all the things I don’t make from scratch pancakes top the list.

You see I learned a long time ago that shortcuts in the kitchen come in two categories, those that affect the quality of your dish and those that don’t. The key is finding out what falls into each category.

As for pancakes, the ones that are light as air? That’s easy, I use Bisquick and use the recipe on the box where you add a little sugar, lemon juice and baking powder. I promise your family will rave about them. I always make a double recipe so that I can put some in the freezer for Emily to heat in the toaster for her breakfast on a school morning.

Next on my son-in-law’s list was a cheesecake for his birthday. I’m surprised at the number of people who think that cheesecake is difficult to make, after all it’s one of the few baked goods you mix up and place in the oven for about an hour and a half while you do other things.

And the other good thing about cheesecake is that it doesn’t take a lot of ingredients and most of them you have on hand.

Let me guess, you don’t have cream cheese hanging out in your refrigerator? Me either, but I do have it stocked in my freezer. Whenever I see cream cheese on sale I put some in my freezer just in case. Yes, I know it says on the package that freezing will alter the product, but depending what you want to use it for, thawed cream cheese is fine for lots of things. I’ve used it for cream cheese frosting, cheesecakes and as an appetizer with pepper jelly or Pic-a-Peppa sauce poured over the top and those three things top my list of reasons to have cream cheese on hand.

Here is good basic cheesecake recipe with a cookie type crust. You can make all kinds of changes to it without much effort. Be sure your cream cheese has thawed and is at room temperature and also your eggs should be at room temperature.

Basic Cheesecake

Crust

1 cup sifted all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1 egg yolk

Filling

5 (8 oz) packages cream cheese, softened

1 3/4 cups sugar

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 eggs

2 egg yolks

1/4 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix one cup flour, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla, and 1/4 cup granulated sugar, cut in 1/2 cup butter. Stir in egg yolk. Shape dough into a ball. Press 1/3 of the dough into bottom of a 10-inch springform pan. Bake for 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool. Increase oven temperature to 500. Grease sides of the springform pan and line sides with remaining dough.

Prepare filling. Beat cream cheese until fluffy. Mix together the 1 3/4 cups sugar, 3 tablespoons all purpose flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and lemon peel, and vanilla. Gradually add dry ingredients to cream cheese, beating until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in heavy cream. Pour batter into the springform pan. Bake for 12 minutes at 500. Without opening oven door, reduce temperature to 200. Bake for 1 hour longer. Cool on rack. Loosen sides of cooled cake; remove sides. Wrap well in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving and is better made the day before.

Christina Hall can be reached at christina.hall@natchezdemocrat.com.