It is the final week of NaBloPoMo, and I am still writing every day over at A Novel Project. Once the calendar flips over to December, I will probably not continue to write there daily, and instead find some sort of mix between writing about book topics (there) and other nonsense (here). One of the things I’m working on for this blog is my somehow now annual Holiday Gift Guide. Pretend shopping for a hundred more things than I need is way more fun than actual shopping, and I do love a gift guide. Unfortunately, there is no way it’s going to be complete by Black Friday, so if you are in need of immediate gift ideas, you may want to check out Swistle’s recent line up. Or you can visit my list of bookish suggestions. And I have many, many posts full of potential gifts you can revisit here.
Okay, now onto food, which is, of course, always at the top of my mind.
Foremost in my thoughts is cheesecake.
Cheesecake Chat
I have been tasked with bringing dessert to Thanksgiving with my parents, and I have decided on cheesecake. My husband would love for the cheesecake to be pumpkin in flavor, or at least in appearance. I, however, do not much care for pumpkin and would prefer my cheesecake be unadulterated; I believe that my father and child might share this preference. We have come to a truce in the form of a pumpkin caramel. This recipe looks doable, if not exactly easy (what caramel is easy, I ask you?). Or, I could go the easiest route of all and order a jar of pumpkin caramel!
I see that I have completely avoided the actual foundation for all this caramel, which is, of course, the cheesecake.
Tierney mentioned the two-layer cheesecake with a sweetened sour cream layer on top, and I realized a) I haven’t had that kind of cheesecake in a very long time and b) I really ENJOYED that kind of cheesecake. Tierney linked to an untested recipe, and I also found a recipe in my battered copy of Joy of Cooking. But I’m unwilling to go with the untested version and the JoC version is so much smaller than anything else… Like, I found a recipe for New York Cheesecake in my America’s Test Kitchen cookbook, and it has pretty near TRIPLE the amounts of all the ingredients that the JoC recipe calls for. They both use the same 9 inch springform pan. They both supposedly produce 12 servings. And yet I don’t know how that’s possible.
Which is a long winded way of saying, I think I will just be going with the Test Kitchen version this year. For a few minutes, I contemplated making the Test Kitchen cheesecake and topping it with the JoC sour cream layer… but I have only made cheesecake a couple of times (and one of those times was a Basque cheesecake), so I’m not sure I have the skill or experience needed to Frankenstein two recipes together. Maybe later on in my cheesecake journey.
Dinners This Week
Ah yes, onto everybody’s favorite time: planning meals. Here in the U.S., Thursday’s meal is most likely spoken for as it’s the day we celebrate Thanksgiving. My family and I will be at my parents’ house, where they are making my mom’s traditional garlic goat cheese mashed potatoes, sausage stuffing dressing, gravy, spinach salad, and – a Thanksgiving first (for us) – beef Wellington.
But we do need to eat the rest of the week, so here’s what I have planned.
Dinners for the Week of November 24-30
- Roasted Chicken and Potatoes with Sauteed Green Beans: Everything I need for this meal is already in my house. The green beans are frozen garlic shitake green beans from Trader Joe’s. I have some potatoes leftover from pot roast the other week, so I’ll quarter those and shove them in with the chicken. I plan to marinate the chicken in this marinade.
- Roasted Teriyaki Salmon and Spicy Zucchini Noodles: My husband will eat a leftover chicken breast instead of salmon, my kid will eat edamame instead of zucchini, and we’ll probably have some brown rice on the side.
- Copycat Delicata Squash: My husband and I ordered an absolutely delectable delicata squash with ricotta cheese on a date night a few weeks ago, and I have not been able to stop thinking about it. I haven’t been able to find an exact copy of the dish we enjoyed, but I’m considering making either roasted delicata squash with mushrooms and whipped ricotta, delicata squash with whipped ricotta and pistachio gremolata, or delicata squash with hot honey walnuts on lemon ricotta. They all sound close enough that they might scratch the itch.
- Turkey, Sweet Potatoes, and Leftovers: My husband and daughter are a teeny bit bummed that our Thanksgiving meal isn’t going to involve turkey. Mom, if you are reading this: I AM NOT BUMMED, I AM ECSTATIC. I DO NOT LIKE TURKEY. They are both going to be delighted by the beef Wellington, I have no doubt, but this weekend I am going to buy a pre-made turkey breast and whip up a miniature portion of our traditional mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallows so they can get their fix. I will also make a batch of homemade cranberry sauce for my kid, who loves cranberry sauce. Oooh! I should do this in advance and bring some to put on the cheesecake, for those of us who dislike pumpkin!
P.S. I did make the lemongrass chicken stir fry last week, with my squeeze tube of lemongrass, and it was a big ol’ meh. I didn’t think it had a whole lot of flavor, but maybe lemongrass is just milder than I expected? If you have any recipes that call for lemongrass, please share them because I have most of this enormous tube leftover.
You seriously do the best gift guides each Christmas and I am anxiously waiting for them to go live. I don’t know if I’ve ever purchased anything (#Underbuyer) BUT THEY ARE PURE DELIGHT. I want you to become my own personal shopper.
Happy Thanksgiving week <3
If the dessert involves the word cheesecake I am all in. I cannot WAIT for our unbaked cherry cheesecake at Christmas. Cannot. wait.
I knew you would be on board for cheesecake, Elisabeth!
I hope your cheesecake turns out well! My mom makes pies for Thanksgiving and always makes a couple of GF ones for me, which is crustless which is what I honestly prefer, except I miss having chocolate pie w/ an oreo cookie crust but oh well. It is not worth the effort of making my own w/ GF oreos. I am also making fall-shaped sugar cookies for the boys to decorate with their cousins as a sort of birthday celebration activity for Taco. Phil was like – ‘wow, upstaging your mom by bringing sugar cookies!’ But I don’t think they will upstage her glorious pies. Plus they are GF…
The only other meal we planned this week was making cheese burgers on the grill yesterday since it was very mild outside. We made 1.75 lbs worth so we’d have lots of leftovers. We also used a giftcard for take out yesterday that we’ve had for over a year. And I still have $900+ of doordash gift cards that we could use if we want. We have Thanksgiving at my brother’s on Thursday and then a Thanksgiving at Phil’s cousin’s on Saturday, except that one is Mexican! Whee!!! I’m here for Mexican at any holiday. Well, except the actual Thanksgiving holiday because I do love turkey and all the sides.
So many fun Thanksgiving plans! I love your cookie decorating idea for Taco. That is so fun and festive.
Yummmmm cheeseburgers. Sounds delicious.
When I make a lemongrass stir-fry with chicken i start with the same base as when I make Vietnamese caramelized pork bowls – chopped garlic, a little ginger, a Thai bird’s-eye chili chopped and the lemongrass paste (quite a bit of it). I saute that and then add the chicken. Then any stir-fry sauce you want once it’s browned.
I do like turkey – I also like beef wellington but I don’t think it would feel like thanksgiving or christmas as much with it, but yay for you!
I made a pumpkin cheesecake once that was amazing, but pumpkin caramel does sound intriguing. Eve once made a cheesecake for cooking class and forgot to put FIVE EGGS in, and it was still pretty good, just sank a little. Cheesecake to me mostly means my mom’s baked cheesecake with cherry pie filling on top, but I am always open to other cheesecakes.
Oh, also your bookish gifts guide was spectacular, and I am HERE for a Christmas one, even though 80 percent of it will probably be unavailable in Canada. Sigh.
Sigh, well thank you for taking one for the team and trying the lemongrass tube.
I’ve never had Beef Wellington, so I must do something about that.
We’re hosting TG, which means that my only jobs are to buy a turkey and wine from Costco, make gravy, and desserts. I’m making chocolate chip cookies and apple pie bars. Oh and I need to check our paper plate/napkin situation since I’m notorious for forgetting to do that.
I am making the no bake NYT one and am very excited!
I also hate turkey so beef wellington sounds delish! I’m bringing meatballs and mac n cheese and a pie to my family’s gathering. I think cooking dinner on the day before Thanksgiving is the hardest thing to do…like can’t you all wait until tomorrow to eat??
What the…what is going on with those cheesecake recipes? I haven’t made one in a million years so I am NO help on this front, but I wish you good luck!!!
WHY do I not have delicata squash meals on rotation???? Hmm. Will rectify!
I remember the cheesecake with sour cream on the top. My mom used to make one with a shortbread type crust and it was delicious. There are the bake and no-bake kinds too. I would be tempted to do a regular cheesecake and then have a “bar” of add-ons like chocolate sauce, caramel, strawberries (or other fruit), etc. Customizable cheesecake!
Loving your memes. So funny. I love cheesecake but I’ve never made one. I’m here to learn what recipe you like best. I’m envious of Lisa whose mom makes her gf pies. We will be with Coach’s side for T-giving and they are really good about having GF offerings.
I love recipes for which everything I need is already in my house. I’ve sort of slacked off on meal planning this week and I have college kids who are coming home and will expect to be fed. Uh oh. We make a turkey breast from Costco all the time – like throughout the year, and it is always a hit. I have one of those in my fridge and maybe I’ll go that route for one of my meals. I will need to load my crockpot in the morning tomorrow because we have a busy evening with another family therapy appt followed directly by a Curly b-ball game.
I loved that “not everyone has to be a strawberry” thing so much I went to Bluesky, found the guy, followed his account, searched for that post, and liked and retweeted it.
I make a pumpkin cheesecake with a chocolate crust. It’s a family favorite, but it does taste like pumpkin.
I think you could make a combo of recipes but it would make me anxious trying to do that on a holiday. I did order a pumpkin cheesecake from a bakery. Your thanksgiving meals all sounds delicious.
I’m planning to make & take a chocolate cobbler, hashbrown casserole, salad, and steak & cheese sliders to our Thanksgiving feast, haha … We always end up with a mishmash, and it’s so much fun 🙂
I can’t wait to find out how the cheesecake turns out! That’s something I want to try baking, but find myself weirdly intimidated by …
I love the cranberry quote! I have so enjoyed reading your daily posts on A Novel Project.I love that you are serving a non-traditional Thanksgiving meal!!! My familly decided to make homemade pizza and I’m really looking forward to that! My contribution is shredding the mozzarella cheese!
I found myself dreaming of a Meyer lemon cheesecake the other day, and wondered if I could just buy a plain cheesecake and top it with lemon curd. Why not, right? Maybe for Christmas. We’re having pumpkin pie and chocolate cream pie this year.
I’m making goat cheese mashed potatoes too! I’m following Ina Garten’s recipe, which has potatoes, garlic, garlic and herb goat cheese, butter, sour cream, half and half, and Parmesan. INSANE. It’s make ahead too, so I can make it tomorrow and just put it in the oven at my in-law’s house. Excellent.
What? There are other meals this week??? Ha. We’ll be making pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, but maybe a cheesecake for my son’s birthday (which is coming up soon!) Ours is a vegan version though- but it’s really good.
i always LOVE your gift guides! There’s no way I’ll get my shopping completed on Black Firday (hahahaha, shopping completed, that’s hilarious) so I”ll be happy with your gift guide whenever it appears!
I’m as excited for your holiday gift guide as I was for Oprah’s Favorite Things show in the 90s. I’m not exaggerating. WEE!!
Oh, I love cheesecake and haven’t made it in forever. Did it turn out good? I also like mine unadulterated, hehe 🙂
I am definitely looking forward to your gift guide. I love looking at those and find new interesting things!