The cheescake recipe would be appreciated. Also the rhubarb flan.
Your whole menu sounds fabulous, lissener. Did you find all the recipes in one place, are they your inventions, or…??
GT
I hope it’s okay to post a magazine’s recipe in it’s entirety.
Roasted-Sweet Potato Cheesecake with Maple Cream
2 dark orange-fleshed sweet potatos (1.25 - 1.5 lbs total)
1 tbspn melted butter
Pecan crust (recipe follows)
2 tspns lemon juice
3 packages cream cheese at room temp
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
4 lg eggs
1/4 cup whipping cream
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup maple syrup
1.5 tspns ground cinnamon
1 tspn ground nutmeg
1/2 tspn ground ginger
maple cream (recipe follows)
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Preheat oven to 375 (convection not recommended). Peel sweet potatoes and cut in half lengthwise. Place in a 9 x 13inch pan and brush with melted butter. Bake until potatoes are soft when pressed, 45 to 55 minutes.
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Meanwhile, prepare crust. Bake in same oven with potatoes until lightly browned all over, 10 to 12 minutes.
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Scrape any charred spots off potatoes, then cut potatoes into chunks. Whirl in a food processor or mash in a bowl with lemon juice until smooth. Reserve 1 cup, save any extra for another use.
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Reduce oven temperature to 325. In a bowl, with a mixer on high speed, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Gradually beat in granulated and brown sugars, scraping down sides of bowl occasionally, until mixture is well blended and smooth. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until blended. Add reserved sweet potato mixture, the whipping cream, sour cream, maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Mix on low speed until well blended.
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Wrap bottom of cheesecake pan with heavy-duty foil, pressing it up the sides. Pour batter over crust. Put cheesecake pan in a 12 by 15-inch roasting pan at least 2 inches deep. Set pans in oven and pour enough boiling water into roasting pan to come halfway up sides of cheesecake pan.
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Bake until cake barely jiggles in the center when gently shaken, about 55 minutes. Remove pans from oven. Lift cheesecake pan from roasting pan and let cool completely, then chill until cold, at least 1.5 hours, or up to 3 days (cover once cold).
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Up to 6 hours before serving, cut around inside of pan rim to release cake, remove rim. With a pastry bag, pipe dollops of maple cream onto cake. Or serve maple cream separately, to spoon onto each wedge.
Pecan crust: Whirl 1/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans in a blender until finely ground; you should have 1/4 cup. In a bowl, mix pecans 1 1/4 cup fine graham cracker crumbs, 2 tbspns sugar, and 5 tblspns melted butter. Pour into a 9-inch cheesecake pan with removable rim (2 1/4 in. tall). Press mixture evenly over bottom of pan.
Maple cream: In a bowl, with a mixer on high speed, beat 3/4 cup whipping cream until stiff peaks form. On low speed, beat in 1/4 cup maple syrup just until blended.
I like to bring “interesting” dishes to Thanksgiving dinner. One year I brought an innocent looking orange gelatin dessert, which contained a noxious secret ingredient…circus peanuts! I ran across the recipe and it was so disgusting I just had to inflict it on my relatives. You should have seen the looks on people’s faces as they tried to figure out what that odd taste was.
Another year I brought a “cat litter” cake, complete with melted Tootsie Roll turds and a clean plastic scooper.
So far this year, the nastiest thing I’ve seen is a recipe for no-bake fruitcake. Of course, fruitcake is pretty nasty no matter what. It hardly matters anymore; few people want to eat what I cook for some reason. 
My sister did a “Nightmare Before Christmas” Thanksgiving using the old Halloween decor. The human-faced pimpkin pie was particularly gross.
I hope she served it beside a plateful of “ho” cakes 
What???
Here’s something you might want to consider:
It does look a bit like dog food, and it’s grossly sweet. My husband begged his mother to never make it again 
.
A Native American friend of mine makes Squaw Corn. It rocks!
Corn
Bacon (cut into 1 in. pieces
Green and Red Pepper
Onion
Fry up the bacon, drain most but not all of the fat, then pour everything else in and cook til tender.
Mmmmmmmmm
Speaking as one who has enjoyed his kitchen wizardry, I’ll confirm he’s a culinary artist, and I’d be surprised if his recipes come from anywhere but his own noggin. I’m a competent cook; he’s amazing.
My suggestion for the OP: coconut curry squash soup.
Ingredients (serves two people as a starter course; scale up as necessary)[ul][li]medium (1 lb) squash (I use kabocha; it’s tasty and easy to find, and you can make a bowl out of it; see below)[]1 tbsp vegetable oil[]3 oz coconut milk (about half of a small can)[]8 oz chicken stock[]1 oz heavy cream[]1 tsp salt[]1/2 tsp pepper[]1/2 tsp curry powder[]1 tsp fresh ginger liquid (grate and squeeze)[/ul][/li]Step one: Bake the squash.
Preheat oven to 350F.
Cut the squash in half. (You’ll probably want to gently tap a cleaver through it with a mallet, rather than risk messing up a good knife.) Remove seeds and pulp with an ice cream scoop. (Discard, or clean and set aside to toast. Yum.) Oil exposed flesh and place, flat (flesh) side down, on a lightly oiled sheet. Bake 45-55 minutes or until rind is slightly softened and dimples when touched. (Time will vary depending on size of squash.)
(For a slightly fancier presentation, use the rind as a bowl. Cut the squash in half crosswise, so you’ve got a top and a bottom. Clean seeds/pulp as above. Then use the ice cream scoop (note, a scoop, not a blade or a disher: my fave) to cut the flesh out of the rind, leaving a bit of flesh around the sides for structural stability, and a little extra at the bottoms of each half. Don’t go too fast or try to cut too much at a time; allow 10 minutes per half. When done, you’ll have two empty rind halves, and a pile of squash chunks and chips. Toss the scooped squash bits with the oil and bake 25-30 minutes or until the tips of the thinnest pieces are brown and the thickest pieces are soft. While the squash is cooking, carefully trim the stem and the rounded ends of the rind halves so they can sit flat. (This is why you leave a little extra in the bottom, so when you trim it you don’t make a leakhole. Guess what I did the first time I tried this. :)) Alternatively, if you can find smaller squash, say 1/2 to 2/3 pounds each, you can use individual gourds as bowls, cutting the top off a quarter of the way down to use as a lid (don’t forget to scoop its flesh also). Whichever you do, it’s kind of a pain in the ass to do it this way, so don’t bother unless you have lots of prep time. If you do, though, it makes quite an impression, and may give you the “remember when he made that” effect you’re looking for.)
Step two: Blend ingredients.
Put all remaining ingredients, along with baked squash, in blender. (Either scoop it out of its rind, if you baked with the first method above, or just dump in the baked chips, if you pre-scooped per the second method.) Depending on the size of your blender and the number of servings, this may take several batches; don’t fill the blender more than, say, 3/4 full.
(Note: Food processor is not recommended for this, as most are not liquid-tight, and will leak.)
Blend until smooth. Taste. As desired, add salt, pepper, and curry powder in dashes, and blend again. Taste again. Try to resist the urge to get a spoon right now.
Step three: Heat on stovetop.
Transfer blend to soup pan and heat on medium-low for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until bubbles just begin to break the surface; reduce to low, cover, and heat another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, let stand two minutes, and serve.
Optional: Dress top of soup.
For additional aroma and texture, sprinkle a dash of curry powder on top of the soup, along with a pinch of ground pistachio nuts (or as noted above, you could use the seeds, toasted and finely chopped).
This soup is relatively easy to make (unless you go with the labor-intensive gourd-as-a-bowl option), with few steps (unless there’s a lot of people, necessitating multiple batches through the blender) and easy-to-find ingredients. The coconut milk and curry confer a taste that’s just a bit exotic and yet comforting and familiar in our age of borderless cuisine. I’ve yet to hear anything but raves when I’ve served it.
“Soup pot.”
I would love to see the Roasted Squash recipe. Hint, hint.
Whatever is served, there needs to be a 10-year hiatus on:
- sweet potatoes with marshmallows (aka “candied yams”)
- green bean casseroles with any Durkee canned product on top of it
- American cheese
- pumpkin pie made from the recipe on a can
- cranberry sauce from the can, including circular indentations from the can on the sauce.
No, sorry, I don’t. I’m gonna cook down some rhubarb with some sugar; or maybe honey. Then I’m gonna line the bottom of a custard dish (i.e. casserole) with it. I’ll do this the day before so it’s cooled off. Then I’ll pour a rich cream-based flan over that and bake it. Then I’ll whimper while it cools and eat it. Probly make some rum or bourbon whipped cream for it.
THese are inventions. A couple of them I’ve done before; some of them will be experiments.
Cervaise flatters me. It would be way more accurate to say that he has graciously served as one of my kitchen guinea pigs on occasion. He is very politely not mentioning the experiments that have failed. . . .
That sounds interesting… have you had some? Or have a recipe? Or something similar, like thai butternut squash curry? Sounds very much like something I’m looking for.
Well, thank you for the description, anyway; it sounds truly delicious. The tart rhubarb sounds like a perfect foil for creamy custard - and I love anything custardy. I’ll try it sometime.
For my son’s first Thanksgiving with his wife’s family (they live in Seattle), they did Asian hot pot dishes. His in-laws are great cooks. I wish I lived close enough to be invited.
This chocolate cake isn’t fancy, but it’s moist, easy, and delicious.
Cake:
1 pkg. chocolate cake mix
3 eggs
1 can (21 oz.) Wilderness cherry pie filling
Frosting:
1 c. sugar
5 tbsp. butter
1/3 c. milk
1 pkg. (6 oz.) semi-sweet chocolate chips
Combine cake mix, egg and cherry pie filling. Mix until blended. Pour into greased and floured 9 x 13 inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until cake springs back when touched.
Frosting:
In a small saucepan combine sugar, butter and milk; bring to a boil, stirring constantly, cook 1 minute. Remove from heat; stir in chocolate until melted and spread over the cake.
It’s from one of those Betty Crocker contest cookbooks. Somebody won 25K for this recipe.
OK I am down with 1, 2, 3 (shudder), and 5.
But I cannot suport you on #4 unless you can offer a better recipe. If you can I will be all over it.
Anyone? Bueller?
Thanks for the very funny mental picture. If you ever need another kitchen recipe tester let me know.
I made a butternut squash kugel to take to the in-law’s for Thanksgiving. The mother-in-law wants nothing to do with it.
Every time we make turkey, we make The Purple Stuff. It’s red cabbage, shredded, cooked on top of the stove with a cup of butter, a cup of sugar, and a cup of white vinegar. Sort of a sweet-and-sour sauerkraut, only edible. It goes really well with turkey, and it’s pretty, too.
Unusual Thanksgiving dinner: One year when I was in my early 20s, my father and uncle and I spent Thanksgiving at Hooters, eating wings and drinking beer and watching football. And ogling waitresses and tipping mightily, of course.
I’m not going to pretend I didn’t enjoy that.