My 25th birthday is coming up on Thursday and last night we had THE family dinner. I requested to have Thanksgiving in May: i.e. Turkey, whipped potatoes, gravy, dressing, green bean casserole, and my dad's homemade rolls. Let me just say, this meal was incredibly, amazingly, heartbreakingly PERFECT. My sweet sister-in-law Jeneva made a lemon-garlic turkey, whipped taters, and the green bean casserole. Dad made extra sagey dressing (Side note: Dad used to set the tin of sage next to my plate when I was a child so that I could add more, even after he had used a whole tin...obsessive much?), gravy, and his too delicious to be imagined, rolls. Daniel's mom, Rolena, contributed with a special, Bussell Boys, traditional fruit salad, and watermelon.
Now what is missing here? As your mouth is watering, wishing it were Thanksgiving, you might be saying "What could possibly be missing!?" and to that I would reply pumpkin pie. As I wrote in yesterdays post mom had to go to the ER and things were a little wild. As I was sitting up around 1am I took it upon myself to CLOSELY read the recipe I was intending to make, gingerbread and pumpkin custard trifle. But when I read closely I saw that the custard had to be refrigerated over night and there was no way I could make it in time. This was disheartening for many reasons, including but not limited to, the fact that I had purchased 8 dollar crystallized ginger, and dad had brought me 2 crystal trifle dishes to choose from. But I pulled it together began scouring my recipes and found one for pumpkin cheesecake.
I made the executive decision that I would have to make-do and whip up a cheesecake. This cheesecake started out innocently enough with cream cheese, but then it got wicked with a combination of white sugar, brown sugar, ground cloves, ground nutmeg, and ground cinnamon. These ingredients alone tasted like the tears of angels (this is a good thing in my book). Then I added eggs, pumpkin puree, and sour cream. You have to understand that I was actually very nervous about how this was going to turn out because I have never made a full sized cheesecake, and well to be quite frank, it looked a little on the thin side. So as my "slave" (stand mixer) was mixing away I looked at the recipe and had the epiphany that I had only used half as much cream cheese as was called for! My poor, sweet, exhausted from a night in the ER with hillbillies, husband had to go to the store and fetch me two more bars to add...So now I was even more concerned that this cheesecake might not turn out right.
Back to dinner: after the delicious, suedo Thanksgiving dinner had been almost completely consumed, it came time for dessert. I pulled the spring form pan out of the fridge, apprehensively opened it, and was met with a good sign because it didn't turn into a pile of liquid on the counter, it defiantly and proudly held its shape. Then I started slicing and was worried that the middle wasn't completely set but it came out just fine. Then Sam did something that Jeneva thought was pure INSANITY and pulled out a can of whipped cream to top the slices with. She asked 2 or 3 times if people normally did mortifying things like that. But after she took a bite of what might have been heaven, she concluded that yes, indeed, people should always do "things like that".
You may be asking yourself, "Self, why am I reading a blog that is almost 100% about a cheesecake?" and I would reply, "I don't know why you are reading it, but equally baffling is why I wrote it!" Bottom line is I had the birthday dinner of my dreams and a little bit of creamy, pumpkiny, cheesecake capped off the night perfectly!
~~On a side note, Jeneva and Sam got me exactly what I wanted for my b-day, a fancy piping bag and several tips! Anybody want a cake????? I'm ready, and willing to ice!~~
I WANT A CAKE!!!
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