Redemption Cheesecake

Remember last year? I had never made a cheesecake before and learned so much. Trial and error, right?  This year was my redemption year. My mom even gave me the Junior's Cheesecakes Cookbook for Christmas last year to help perfect my cheesecake making. 

I had a game plan this time. I had all my ingredients ready to go by Sunday. I got off work early on Wednesday and got to baking. I remember last year I did not have enough time to let the cheesecake cool and refrigerate because I got up Thanksgiving morning to make it. This year the day before would be plenty of time!  I was throwing my ingredients together and rocking and rolling jamming to some good tunes having so much fun! 

Junior's has a spongecake crust that  you make first. I was a bit worried about this because I have never heard of it before. But, it came out perfectly!

After the crust cooled I prepared everything else and had it baking in the oven by 8:30pm. Man, I am good, that is what I was thinking. This was going to be my redemption cheesecake! It looked really good too and the batter tasted very yummy! 

Ziggy was even very intrigued with the goings on in the kitchen.

 While said redemption cheesecake was baking in the oven my sister, brother-in-law, and niece were on the road traveling to visit us for a few days. My sister called and I told her all about how great things were going with my redemption cheesecake. I read through the ingredients of the cheesecake with her and then I came to...heavy cream. I know I bought heavy cream at the store on Sunday and it was chilling nicely in my refrigerator, but...I forgot to put it in the cheesecake!! OMG!

So, needless to say I had to start all over again! My sweet husband went to the store at 10:30pm to pick up 4 more blocks of cream cheese. I dumped the first delinquent cheesecake and started baking the second one. It went a little quicker since I had just put one together a few hours before. As I tried to remain positive, I rocked and rolled through this one too, but this time I made sure not to forget the heavy cream! Around about 3:00am Thanksgiving morning the cheesecake was cooled and ready stick in the fridge to refrigerate overnight. Thank goodness! 

Fortunately the cheesecake was very yummy! Unfortunately, I still have to perfect the huge crater that is  the size of the Grand Canyon from appearing in the middle of my cheesecake next time. But, given the odds I was up against, a measly crater the size of the Grand Canyon was not that big of a deal I suppose! 

Despite the late evening we woke up early to watch the Thanksgiving Day Parade. My niece Violet loved it! She is such a good helper and helped me cook breakfast. She is quite the little chef! We had eggs, sausage, and english muffins.We were trying to keep things healthy since we knew what we would be in for later.

We finally arrived to my family gathering for Thanksgiving in the late afternoon and had a great spread!

My sister made many a pie.....

The tables were decorated sweetly too, just as they always are!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Cheers! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a cold front blow in early this morning which I am very thankful for! I am tired of the Texas heat, given, it is not nearly as hot as it is during the summer. But, it would be nice for the weather to actually feel like holiday weather. Yesterday it was almost 80 degrees and now it is in the 40's! Ah, I love it! So, this morning, I did what I do ever Thanksgiving morning, I turned on the Parade! After a bit of morning relaxing, coffee drinking, and parade watching, I got to cooking. I volunteered to cook rosemary biscuits and a pumpkin cheesecake. Now, biscuits...that is not too difficult to mess up  but a cheesecake can be dicey. I have never made a cheesecake before. Things were going so very well too but I soon realized 2 very important things. First, never ever make a cheesecake with store brand cream cheese. It will turn out lumpy. Second, never ever ever ever ever take the bottom of the spring form pan off the cheesecake. This is a risky move which will ultimately end up in disaster. As I was flipping the cheesecake (I am sure those of you who are avid cheesecake makers are gasping at that very thought) 1/4 of it fell right off. As I started having a mini melt down and on the verge of tears, Jeff rescued me and I was able to patch it together. But, not the less...the poor little cheesecake looked quite unsightly but...everyone graciously ate it anyway.

The biscuits turned out great!  Those are pretty hard to screw up. I did not have shortening so I used butter but it worked great!  I cut rosemary from my garden a few days ago and hung it to dry. Oh, I love the smell of rosemary and it is great in biscuits! 

Happy Thanksgiving to all! 

Cheers!