If there is any better excuse to eat pumpkin anything, it's Autumn. I love this time of year. It houses my favourite food holiday (Thanksgiving) and makes it socially acceptable to eat Anything that can remotely be considered 'pumpkin spice seasonal'. Specifically though, pie and cake. My love for a certain orange squash is so great that I will eat endure the weird looks at restaurants when asking for pumpkin desserts in May.

Anyways. For thanksgiving I made a pumpkin swirl cheesecake! I thought I'd share it.

Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake

2 cups finely crushed Gingersnap cookies (I bought premade; pulsed them in a food processor)
1/4 cup butter, melted

3 pkg (250g each) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs

1 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
dash ground cloves

Preheat oven to 350'F.
Mix together cookie crumbs and butter. Press into the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan.
Beat cream cheese, 1/2 sugar and vanilla until blended. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, just until blended. Remove 1 cup pf the plain batter and set aside. Stir in 1/4 cup sugar, pumpkin and spices into the remaining batter.
Now it's swirling time! Spoon half the pumpkin batter into the crust in the pan. Top with dollops of the plain batter. Dip the tip of a knife or icing spreader into the pumpkin batter and follow it through the dollops in a straight lined lattice. (See video.) Repeat, using remaining pumpkin and plain batter for a second layer.
Bake 45 minutes or until centre is almost set. Cool completely. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

Tada! Super easy, Super delicious.

Now... being only the second time I've ever made a cheesecake at home, of course something had to go very wrong. My cheesecake split something awful. BUT! Always look for the little dancing stickman in every disaster. He will show you the way! (Or in this case, the way to place his cookie head.)

Cheers!

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist

Thanksgiving is my favourite holiday. A giant roasted turkey; bread stuffing poultry spiced out the wa-zoo; a hot mashed potato and gravy volcanos; pumpkin pie with a literal mountain of whipped cream; and last but not least, leftovers. Part of my love affair with the entirely food focused holiday is the fact that leftovers are not a sign that you over did it, but a reward for having done so well.

This year was the first year we celebrated in TO. We decided that it was also going to be our first thanksgiving just the BF and I. We made a 15 pound bird. That's right. We had a double bunk berth on the train to Leftover Town, and we were excited. So with the pumpkin pie made and the bacon stuffing ready for turkey time, I pre-heated my oven, stuffed my bird and began the magic that is roasting a turkey. The magic = I put a timer on for 3 1/2 hours and walked away from the kitchen.

Anyways. With turkey cooked and fixings ready we had ourselves a wonderful first thanksgiving. I even managed to get the kitchen cleaned up and food packed away within two hours. Record to beat.

We proceeded to make a meal plan for the days to come: Hot Turkey Sandwiches, Turkey Noodle Soup, Turkey Pot Pie, and, my favourite, Turkey Leftovers Pizza.

This recipe comes from my days at the test kitchen. It was a weird recipe, I'll give it that. One of those recipes that you'll either gag at the thought of or wonder why you never thought of it before: The goodness of Pizza and Thanksgiving Dinner all in one.

Turkey Leftovers Pizza

Dough
3/4 cup warm water (104'F/40'C)
1 tsp granulated sugar
1 pkg dry yeast (Or 2 1/4 tsp if you have a jar)
2 cups flour
3/4 cup cold mashed potatoes
1/2 tsp salt
2 TBSP oil

Toppings
1 cup gravy
1 cup turkey, pulled unto pieces
1 cup stuffing, broken apart into chunks
Cranberry sauce (optional)

Gravy, hot (for dipping!)

Pre-heat oven to 400'F.
Add sugar to warm water and stir to dissolve sugar completely.
Add yeast to sugar/water and let sit in a warm place (like the top of your oven range) for about 5 minutes or until yeast looks foamy.
In another bowl, mix together flour, mashed potatoes and salt.
Add oil into the foamy yeast mixture.
Pour foamy yeast mixture over flour/potato mixture. Stir until the dough comes together. Knead dough for a minute until uniform (no potato lumpies). Use extra flour if your hands are sticking.
On a baking sheet covered in parchment, pat out your pizza shell.
Spread gravy on shell (it's the sauce!). Cover pizza with turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce (optional).
Bake for 25 minutes or until pizza crust looks browned. Serve hot with gravy for "dipping" sauce.

Don't knock it till you've tried it!