So I am back at my parents’ house for Thanksgiving Break.
And for some reason, I decided to volunteer my cooking services to help prepare
the big dinner tomorrow. I thought I would keep it safe and make a salad as
well as some embellishments from Moosewood as a way to ease into the
whole deal, but also cross off some recipes. And, don’t worry, that’s all
coming. But my Mom also decided to pass off the pumpkin cheesecake to me. It’s
currently baking in the oven (making it early to prevent kitchen traffic jams
tomorrow), and we won’t actually eat it until tomorrow night, so I’ll have to
update later.
It was a
bit of an adjustment cooking in my parents’ kitchen. We moved into this house
exactly one week before I left for college, so sometimes I flat out don’t know
where things are. The kitchen is also about the size of my apartment’s
kitchen/dining room/living room combo. The counter space is phenomenal.
Obviously, I’ve used this kitchen before (I live here most summers, after all)
and most of the equipment is stuff we’ve had for awhile (like the fancy upright
mixer! So much jealousy), but I still felt a bit out of place. It’s strange how
quickly I’ve developed my own rhythms when I cook in my apartment. So I had to
kind of alter all of that in this new, very large, space.
 |
| Massive can of pumpkin filling! |
The pumpkin
cheesecake is my Mom’s recipe and it’s always one of my favorite parts of our
Thanksgiving meal. It was pretty simple to make, especially with the power of
the mixer on my side. One rather unfortunate side effect of cooking is that you
realize how unhealthy a lot of dishes are. This recipe requires a whole stick
of butter just for the crust! Also, canned pumpkin is kind of gross. It’s got
that artificial sweet smell and looks like brownish-orange goop (yum). The
label assured me that it was 100% pumpkin, though.
I’m
slightly worried about how this recipe will turn out, as I always am when I
cook. I’ve never made cheesecake and I was using some ingredients that I’d
never worked with before. I’ve also never really cooked for anyone else before.
I’ve made things that other people have eaten, sure. But this is the first time
that my dish is intended for the consumption of others.
The filling seemed a little lumpy,
but I did my best to smooth it out. The crust is made primarily out of graham
cracker crumbs (and butter), with a little brown sugar and “finely crushed
pecans”. Which means that you are expected to crush the pecans yourself, which
is a HUGE pain in the ass. I don’t really think mine were crushed that well,
but I did my best. I even got my sister to help out a big, but she got bored as
quickly as I did. So perhaps someone will get a lump of pecan in his or her pie
slice. Consider it an honor, like finding the baby Jesus in a Mardi Gras King
Cake.
I also spilled (yes spilled, leave
me alone) cinnamon into the mixture. Potential gross flavor explosion there. It
didn’t have a strong cinnamon smell though, but that might’ve been because the
pumpkin was kind of overwhelming. Thankfully, this won’t be posted to the
Internet in time for my family members to read it, so I can feign surprise at
the cinnamon maelstrom that is possibly awaiting us all.
**UPDATE: a piece of the cheesecake got stuck to the side of
the pan when I was taking it out. I tried it and it’s totally delicious and not
at all cinnamon happy!**
 |
| Cooling off... |
Since this
isn’t a Moosewood recipe, the counter remains unchanged. But 18 recipes
in one month is a pretty good pace. I’ll have to pick it up slightly in order
to finish all 241 in time. A big post is coming tomorrow though, as I attempt
to conquer 5 Moosewood recipes (and other people attempt to eat them).
No comments:
Post a Comment