For some reason, I am appreciating Fall more than ever this year. On Saturday we decorated our porch/door for Halloween (I'll post a pic soon). I was so happy!! I can't get enough of Halloween, Fall, soup, hot chocolate... mmm. I love it! I know it'll be gone soon since Logan's Fall lasts approximately 2.3 weeks before the snow comes... but I'll take what I can get.
As part of my "loving Fall" mood, I really wanted to use pumpkin in a dessert to go with the soup I was making for a woman in my ward. Since I'm not a fan of pumpkin cookies (much to Mike's dismay), I went to my endless recipe book... the internet. I found a recipe for pumpkin cheesecake on Kraft foods (gotta love it!). Although I probably shouldn't experiment with food I'm taking to other people.... it was fantastic! I know some of you have had my 4-layer pumpkin cake, and although the cheesecake's presentation does not stand nearly as impressive as that, I'm giving it the boot this Thanksgiving for this yummy (and much easier) cheesecake! Yum!! I highly recommend it.
Recipe:
2 pkg. (8 oz. each) Cream Cheese, softened **Healthy Tip: next time
I'm going to try this with 1 pkg of Neufchatel and 1 pkg of regular cream
cheese to cut down on the fat**
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
Dash of ground clove **I didn't have clove so I used a dash
of pumpkin spice instead because I had it in my cupboard**
Dash of ground nutmeg
1 Graham Cracker Pie Crust (6 oz.)
PREHEAT oven to 325°F. Beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition just until blended. Remove 1 cup of the batter; stir in pumpkin and spices.
POUR remaining plain batter into crust. Top with pumpkin batter.
BAKE 40 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool. Refrigerate 3 hours or overnight. **We baked this about 10 min. longer than it suggested so it would set as described. Also, we refrigerated it for about 5 hours. It had wonderful texture but I'll be interested to see if it's different depending on the length of refrigeration.**
