Chase Freedom Rewards 5x Grocery Bonus Sunday Dessert: Strawberry Cheesecake

Welcome to the sixth in our Chase Freedom / Trader Joe's series of maximizing Chase Ultimate Rewards points using the Chase Freedom card and Chase Exclusives while eating well for less. Here are the past posts:

We're now up to $960 in spend via 20 transactions. With Chase Exclusives, that equates to:

960 base points

3840 bonus points (4x, on top of 1x base)

96 as 10% bonus on 880 base

200 for 20 bonus points for each of 16 transactions

5096 Total

Today was Mother's Day! Since we went out earlier in the day for brunch, I made a quick dinner of lasagne, salad and this Strawberry Cheesecake, using some organic strawberries that were on sale this week at our corner grocery (not Trader Joe's). I made up the recipe as I went along, and fortunately it's pretty forgiving and lends itself to “eyeballing” the ingredients. Instead of vanilla, you could instead finely grate some Meyer lemon zest using a microplane, and use a couple tablespoons of strained Meyer lemon juice, for a lemon cheesecake. And if you love chocolate, another option is to scatter some good quality bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate chips over the crust before pouring in the filling.

Cost: ~$8 for the cheesecake (prorated cost of ingredients used)

UR Points:

Only 60 points for the prorated $8 spent on two transactions, at Trader Joe's and my corner grocery; but see our total UR points above for total earned to date on grocery spend of $960

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Total baking time: ~35 minutes

Shopping List, Strawberry Cheesecake

Trader Joe's white whole wheat flour

Trader Joe's triple ginger cookies

Trader Joe's Presidents Reserve olive oil

2 8 oz. packages cream cheese

Trader Joe's cage free eggs

Trader Joe's bourbon vanilla extract (or 1/2 vanilla bean, if you have on hand)

Trader Joe's organic half and half

Trader Joe's organic sugar

Organic strawberries (quart container)

Strawberry Cheesecake (makes one 9″ cheese cake)

Preheat overn to 350 degrees.

In blender or food processor, grind about 25 ginger cookies into fine crumbs

Chase Freedom Rewards 5x Grocery Bonus Sunday Dessert: Strawberry Cheesecake

In bowl, mix cookie crumbs with 1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour and half cup olive oil until crumb like. Pat into bottom and up sides of 9″ pie plate. Bake in preheated oven 10 minutes, then remove from oven.

Meanwhile, if using vanilla bean instead of vanilla extract, use a thin sharp knife (such as a tomato knife) to cut one side of vanilla bean

Wash out blender, and pour in 1/2 cup half and half. Add 2 eggs, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt. Scrape in vanilla seeds from vanilla bean, if using, otherwise add 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Add 1 1/2 packages cream cheese. Blend mixture until completely smooth, then pour into pre-baked crust and bake a further 25 minutes, until center is just set. Remove from oven and cool.

Wash and hull strawberries. Slice two-thirds of them and reserve. With remaining one-third, cut into small pieces.

Blend 1 teaspoon cornstarch with 2 tablespoons water, and add to clean blender. Add one-third of strawberries and 1/3 cup sugar and blend until smooth. Cook in nonstick saucepan over medium heat until thickened, about 4 minutes, then remove from heat and stir in reserved sliced strawberries. Spoon atop cooled cheesecake and chill at least 3 hours before serving.