Thanksgiving Making

On Thanksgiving we managed to make it to two locations in two different states despite a total downpour that slowed traffic to around 40MPH on the interstate. We ate a lot too, ham, turkey, potatoes, beans covered in cream of mushroom soup, rolls...you get the idea. For my part I made two of Dorie Greenspan's My Favorite Pecan Pie, a Pumpkin Chai Cheesecake, sweet potatoes with a praline topping and Proscuitto Dijon Gruyere puffs from Joy the Baker.

The cheesecake recipe came from one of those little magazines companies like Kraft put out around the holidays near the checkout aisle at the grocery store. Normally I don't buy those but this one had recipes from Mark Bittman in it as well as the cheesecake on the front and I'm a sucker for pumpkin cheesecake. As most cheesecakes need hours to cool, I made it Wednesday night. I think it turned out beautifully, especially since it's the first cheesecake I've ever made with no cracks in it! 

 

The recipe also included a caramel-rum sauce but since we were traveling I left it off. Had I been making the recipe at home I would have included it, although I don't think the cheesecake needed it, it stood alone just fine. 

The proscuitto puffs were something that just caught my eye when I was reading Joy's blog on Wednesday. After work I braved the crowds and ran by Whole Foods for Gruyere and procuitto. Much to my dismay  I couldn't find any proscuitto there and I wasn't willing to risk my sanity at another grocery store so I grabbed some pancetta slices and hoped that would work. Several months ago a couple of my friends drove to Nashville to visit Trader Joe's and brought me back some puff pastry sheets. Trader Joe's puff pastry uses all butter instead of oil and makes the flakiest, butteriest puff pastry. 

My puffs didn't turn out as pretty as Joy's but they were dangerously good. They will find a place on my appetizer menus for a long time.

Hope you had a Thanksgiving filled with goodies!