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!

While I was tossing and turning one of the bizarre thoughts that entered my mind was hoping I would find some of my family recipes that I’ve lost over the years. Two in particular came to mind – my grandma’s “Fudgies” and my Aunt Theona’s doughnuts. I had the recipes for many years on note cards I kept in a small green plastic container – which is nowhere to be found. I was really thinking this morning about Aunt Theona’s doughnuts. I wondered how many people in this world have probably never experienced the pleasure of eating a homemade doughnut. Doughnuts are so readily available and pretty cheap, why would you go to the trouble of making them at home? Once you’ve tasted one, you’d understand. My aunt’s doughnuts were so darn delicious!
The whole point of this story is – I was up at 3am thinking about how people don’t eat homemade doughnuts and then the wackiest thing happened when I opened today’s paper.  Look at what was on the front page of today’s Orlando Sentinel:

You  have got to admit this is WEIRD!!

Maybe now I’ll find that recipe.  Really weird!