I’m going to brag about myself here. I made the MOST AWESOME Thanksgiving dinner this year. It was just my mom and me and the menu was the basics – turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, green-bean casserole, gravy and dessert.
I can’t take too much credit for the turkey. It was a Butterball and frankly, it’s pretty darn hard to screw up a Butterball, which is why I buy them. The dressing was amazing – I”ll share that recipe in another post. What really stood out and surprised my though, was the dessert.
I honestly hadn’t really planned on making any dessert. I don’t need the extra calories. It would only be for 2 people so there would be tons of leftovers, which I didn’t need in the house. But I gave in and caved to the Thanksgiving traditions of needing something sweet to end the day. My mind started craving something pumpkin – and I went with Pumpkin Cheesecake. It ended up being the biggest surprise in how delicious it was! I found a basic cheesecake recipe and embellished it to my liking.
Ladies and gentlemen, here is my Pumpkin Pecan Cheesecake recipe:
Pumpkin Pecan Cheesecake
1 pkg regular cream cheese
1 pkg low-fat cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1 whole egg
2 egg whites
2 Tbl cinnamon (reduce if you’d like to)
1 Tbl pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp clove
1 Tbl vanilla
Mix all this together until creamy
For pie crust – I used a store-bought graham cracker pie crust and enhanced it by pouring 1/4 cup ground (or pounded) pecans into the bottom of the dish.
Pour on top of this the cream cheese mixture. Garnish the top with whole pecans.
Bake at 325-degrees for 70 minutes (1 hour, 10 minutes)
It needs to sit for several hours before serving, actually better to refrigerate overnight before serving.
Bon appetit!
