What a Thanksgiving! dS2 left today to drive back up north to college, dd and boyfriend left Thursday evening to back to their homes and jobs, Auntie left yesterday afternoon, still have MIL and DS1 and his gf. DH and his mom are tending the bonfire, DS and GF are playing tennis and I am taking a break in the library :-). We took MIL who has advancing dementia to local ballet school matinee performance of the Nutcracker today and she LOVED it, much to our surprise and delight! Biggest excitement--- daughter's boyfriend asked DH for our permission to ask her to marry him! We are keeping quiet as he plans to do this in a few weeks and we don't want spoil the surprise! We could not be happier as the young man is exactly who we would order as a SIL and he is truly devoted to our girl. Tired of cooking and serving, that's for sure! Mtn, I realized -- finally-- that I used a 9.5" springform pan instead of a 9" or 8", which is why it looked so flat. It was still delicious, though, and the apple pie from our local Methodist youth group was fantastic! And do you know, I am sending people home with their gingerbread house kits. We were having such a good time talking and visiting that the afternoon sped by with no need for a planned indoor activity! We will save ours for Christmas Eve when my nephews are staying over. Chibimimi, you are a veritable pioneer! I cannot imagine cooking over an open fire and really admire you for not giving in and running to the nearest restaurant. Bbstx, wine was definitely involved! We had a Viognier and a Beaujolais for our turkey dinner, and shooters of hot wassail spiked with spiced rum in mini christmas mugs. Let's just say it was pretty cheerful oPattyxlynn, what a great idea for a dessert/snack---- caramelized apple chips----and I'll bet your apple cinnamon loaves were delicious! I am often dubious of the photos I see on Pinterest.......they look like the product of a craft room staff, not a single harried individual with a pair of scissors and a roll of ribbon. Happy Thanksgiving to all!!

I have had both good and bad pumpkin cheesecake. It is BF's favorite, so he makes it every year. I have made it too. I use the Cooking Light recipe. But anyhoo, the best pumpkin cheesecake I ever had was at a friends house who is something of a gourmet. She got the recipe from Cooks Illustrated. The secret was draining/drying the canned pumpkin, which I have done. I did mine with paper towels. It somehow makes the pumpkin less bitter. Here's a copy of Chris Kimball's directions: Spiced Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake �" 'The Squeeze Job' Many people have turned to making pumpkin cheesecake instead of pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. And while Kimball recommends using pumpkin from a can instead of roasting your own, he also warns against a common, and serious, flaw in the store-bought variety. "The problem is, it has a lot of moisture in it, and you don't want that extra moisture in your cheesecake," Kimball says, "because it ruins your cheesecake. So, what do you do?" "The secret," Kimball says, "is the way we wick away the moisture." His technique calls for putting a triple layer of paper towels onto a baking sheet �" one that has sides, to catch the eventual runoff. The pumpkin goes from the can right onto the towels, where it's smeared around. "This is a great thing for kids," Kimball says. "They can make a big mess." Then Kimball puts more towels on top, and folds the whole thing in half, then folds again. As he does, he's patting the bundle, squeezing water and moisture out. Then he flips it over, and carefully peels back the top layer of paper. "This looks like one of those fruit rollups, doesn't it?" Kimball says. Repeatedly flipping the bundle and peeling back the top layer of paper, Kimball eventually uncovers the pumpkin mash �" now much denser and ready to be combined with the cream cheese, which he recommends taking out of the refrigerator at least one to two hours ahead of time. In another tip, Kimball says to use spices like cinnamon and allspice sparingly. But his recipe also uses plenty of white sugar and heavy cream. "There's no stinting," Kimball says. "Stinting is not a verb that's used at Thanksgiving. Absolutely not." When all is ready, he reveals the next trick to the cheesecake: baking it in a springform pan that sits in a water bath, so the entire cheesecake cooks evenly.

This sounds yummy, but I wanted to try a recipe from my new baking book for Saturday night Jessica. I'm going to save this one for another day. Thanks for posting it Linda! Oly

That recipe has a lot of eggs compared to other recipes. Mine is cooling in the oven right this minute. I've made pumpkin cheesecake the past two Thanksgivings but today I made sweet potato cheesecake because someone asked if we'd ever heard of it. Since I prefer sweet potato pie over pumpkin pie, I thought I'd give it a try. One tip I read for using canned pumpkin is to remove as much of the water as possible because you don't want water in cheesecake. Spread the pumpkin on a stack of paper towels and change them often as they absorb the water. I use a 6 x 3 cheesecake pan since there's just two of us and I want a tall cheesecake. I make half of Dorie Greenspan's cheesecake recipe and add 1/2 cup of pumpkin (or sweet potato) and spices. I use half sour cream and half heavy cream to ramp up the creaminess. For pumpkin cheesecake, I replace some of the sugar with light brown sugar. I'm not a fan of graham cracker crust so I made gingersnaps and made my crust with them. https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015672-tall-and-creamy-cheesecake