Dreaming of lime gerbils in a cheese sauce

Damn these measuring systems! I hates 'em, I tell you.

Have you ever heard of someone accidently baking a cheesecake? No? Well you have now. Yesterday when I went to make the pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving I did the math wrong (3 times, no less) and decided that 6 8oz packages of cream cheese are needed to make up 1.5lbs. This is clearly wrong (duh). So... after I added the correct spices, sugar, pumpkin, eggs, and cream I came to realized I had twice as much cream cheese as I should have had. I then proceeded to fix this by adding another pie's worth of spices, sugar, eggs, and cream. After that I ran out to The Mrs. Cooks and bought a second springform pan so I could bake up the accidental cheesecake.

I hope they taste good, that's all I can say.

Aside from that fun, I also prepped the turkey (brine for 8 hours, rinse, pat try, spread on roasting sheet to air dry in fridge overnight), made the stuffing that will sit under the bird while it cooks, made the stock for the gravy, and baked a carrot cake.

Today is prep the house, cook the bird, make the garlic mashed potatoes, put the gravy together and then "relax with dinner".

Thanksgiving is the holiest day in my calendar. It is worth the effort. I just wish I could do math.

I still have it. All of it. My guests did their best but after eating all that turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, etc etc etc etc they just couldn't eat more than 2/3rds of the first cheesecake and maybe 2/5ths of the carrot cake.

I guess I have to wait until tomorrow to see how the second one came out. I was fairly happy with the first one. I think it could have stayed in the oven another 3-4 minutes but in all it came out quite reasonably for the first time I've made this one (and considering how many strikes it had against it what with double batches and resting in the fridge before being baked and....).

So, tomorrow (Friday) is melted chocolate day. I've invited my guests back for leftovers and then we're going to melt down the Couverture chocolate I bought in Brugge and dip stuff (like cheese cake and carrot cake and apples and bananas and strawberries and oranges and whatever-else shows up) in and eat it. MMmmmm gluttony.

Oh, and that whole thankful thing? I'm glad I have friends who will help me eat all this!