Happy Thanksgiving!

In the past I have made Oreo cheesecakes, pumpkin blondies, and a pumpkin cake with amaretto cream cheese frosting. This year I was commissioned to make a cheesecake for our Thanksgiving feast.  I decided to move away from the pumpkin flavor for a moment, assuming that there would be a pumpkin pie present at the dessert table.  I went with a caramel apple cheesecake and I was quite happy with it.

Chock full of finely diced apples.

Caramel action shot with the help of my lovely assistant, Amy.

Oooohhh yea she came out nice.

Just pretend like you don't see that minor crack.

I hope everyone had a fantastic and delicious Thanksgiving!

 

Sopapilla Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars

I got the recipe for sopapilla cheesecake bars at cookies and cups' blog.  I was supposed to be cooking non-stop pumpkin for the month of November, but the month has slipped by me far too quickly.  I added pumpkin and pumpkin spice to the cheesecake filling in these bars to jump-start my pumpkin baking.

The cheesecake layer awaiting the mixer.

MMmmmm cinnamon, sugar, and buttery goodness fresh out of the oven.

Here's an cross-section: crescent rolls, cheesecake, crescent rolls.

These were so tasty and easy to make.  I also love the fact that it has a nice and short ingredient list.

Overloaded Cookies

These don't have a name because I pretty much just grabbed random things out of the cabinet to put in them.  I used a Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe (I halved it) for the dough.  Then I put in some magic in the form of chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, toffee bits, oatmeal, annnnd pumpkin pie spice for good measure.

I ate waaaay too much of this dough.

All lined up on the cooling rack.

Why did I half the recipe? What the hell was I thinking? When does my family ever just want half of something? The answer is never and I should never ever halve a dessert recipe. 24 hours later and they are all but gone.

Broccoli Cheddar Bites

I know you are really tired of my weeknight meals where I cook pasta and throw a whole bunch of stuff in it. You don't have to say it.  I know it and I'm pretty tired of it too. But those are weeknight and weeknights are just sooooo lazy sometimes.

Moving right along to a NOT so lazy weeknight meal!  Broccoli bites.... with corn! and cheddar! all mushed together into one delicious patty.  I used this recipe here and added some corn to the mix and an additional egg because things were just not coming together nicely.

Yep, I mixed all that icky egg business with my hands.

Then formed them into patties.

I served these with some white rice that I cooked with Italian seasonings.  

When the rice was done cooking  I stirred in arugula and Parmesan cheese.

Let's just all imagine these being cooked in a deep fryer (instead of the oven) for a moment....... mmmmmm. But I will say that gluttony won't be necessary.  These are tasty right outta the oven.

Cooked, eaten, Cleaned in Less Than an Hour

Seriously I cooked this, ate it, and cleaned it up in less than an hour. AND it was made in one pot. What more could you possibly ask for?

I used this recipe for creamy lemon pasta with arugula, omitting the artichokes because I didn't have any on hand. I will say I didn't miss them one bit.  I did add some diced tomatoes which one eater claimed was a "stroke of genuis."

Top it off with some Parmesan cheese.

And then proceed to eat 3 bowls.

Make this and I defy you to eat less than 3 bowls.

Mets Birthday Cake

The idea for this birthday cake came to me in a dream.  Granted this dream ended up turning into an anxiety filled "nightmare" in which I couldn't get it finished in time and was going to be very late for school.  But I digress. On to the cake!

I dyed white cake mix blue and orange. 

Then I took turns dropping spoonfuls of each color and swirled it with a toothpick.

And here she is all iced up nice.  Let's pretend you don't see how off center that Mets logo is...

I must say I think it came out super cute.  And don't worry, I baked this with my Yankees shirt on.

Halloween Skull Cupcakes

I scoured the internet for hours, days, weeks, trying to decide what to make for a Halloween treat this year.  I chose to make these marshmallow skulls.  This excellent photo tutorial guided me.

My super cute cupcake lines!

For a festive autumnal cake I chose carrot cake (from a mix, please don't judge me). For the frosting I used cream cheese frosting mixed with maple pumpkin butter (how's that for autumnal??).

I got these kick ass sprinkles at Stop and Shop after a small glass shattering incident, shhhhhhh no one needs to know it was me!

Here's Amy meticulously frosting cupcakes that I am going to cover with sprinkles and skulls anyway.

The skulls are all lined up and ready to go!

I hope everyone had a fun Halloween!!