it all started with paint: chocolate chip & pumpkin pie cheesecake

It’s time to pull out the big guns …

I didn’t expect to post so frequently about cooking. I guess it’s just that time of year …

…and since this blog is about chronicling my creations, in the months of November and December I find myself increasingly creating in the kitchen.

I’ve been bringing my cheesecake to family gatherings since I first moved to Chicago and it’s become a fan favorite. It’s a recipe that either came from my sister or my mother … or my mother passed it along to my sister or vice versa …

I’ve changed the recipe up in the past with the addition of chocolate chips and a fourth stick of cream cheese. This year I took it a step further and added pumpkin for Thanksgiving. I found a Paula Dean pumpkin cheesecake recipe at the Food Network site and made a few tweaks. Yes. You may gasp now. I know it’s pretty nervy of me to mess with Miss Paula Dean. Fortunately, her cheesecake ingredients/prep and mine were pretty much identical. The adjustments were minor.

Let’s get cooking. I set the oven to 350 degrees and gathered my ingredients …

For the crust, I crushed the chocolate wafers into crumbs and mixed with 3 tablespoons of sugar, cinnamon and one stick of melted butter – that one stick of butter is all Paula Dean’s idea …