Cottage Cheese Cheesecake

When our firstborn was almost a year old, my in-laws came to visit and meet their first grandchild.  They brought a gift, a blender, a Hamilton Beach one which lasted decades.  The blender came with a nice big cookbook, which I read from cover to cover.

I must admit that I cooked very few of those recipes.  The one I cooked the most was its cheesecake.  And this morning I got a facebook message from an old friend asking if I still make it and a request for the recipe.  So if she remembers it fondly from over thirty-five, yes 35, years ago, it's definitely worth blogging.

In those days we didn't have great varieties of food here in Israel.  We always had to substitute, so I used plain cookies/biscuits instead of the zweibacks, the book lists.  Honestly, to this day, I haven't the vaguest idea what zweibacks are.

It's a very easy cheesecake recipe using easy to find ingredients.  It's simple to make and make lower fat if desired.  I'm sure it'll taste fine with arificial sweetners, too.  You can add cut fruit and anything else, including chocolate.  Recipes are supposed to be "played with."  Please let me know how it comes out.

Here's the recipe, including commentary:

18 "zweiback"
2 Tablespoons sugar (could be deleted, makes the topping too sweet) 
1/3 cup melted butter (I must have used about 2 or 3 cubed inches)
1 cup milk
1 T lemon juice, which was awful, so I used vanilla extract
4 eggs
1/2 cup sugar (I used brown sugar)
2 T flour (I used whole wheat)
1/4 teaspoon salt (I never add salt to cakes, so you can leave it out)
lemon rind, optional and not recommended
16 ounces of cottage cheese

1. blend the cookies into crumbs, making 1 1/2 cups
2. mix crumbs with the 2 T's of sugar and the melted butter
3. press just under half of it on the bottom of a 9x9x2 or 8" round baking pan
4. put remaining ingredients in blender, in order listed, and blend until smooth
5. pour into baking pan
6. spread remaining crumb mixture, actually, I used to just make less crumbs and only use them on the bottom.  You can reduce the calories enormously by eliminating the topping, or top without bottom crumbs.
7. bake until center is firm, temperature a drop less than for a regular cake.