Can You Say CHEESECAKE?

With my electric blanket turned on high to get the bed warm, I snuggled in for a long peaceful night of sleep.  NOT!!  Miss Jessie got overheated and exited out the bottom door just about the time I got to sleep.

There's nothing that makes Cooper madder than someone MOVING, even a fraction of an inch.  You cannot imagine the growly sounds coming out of that little body.  By morning I was still struggling with the time thing.  Do I get up?  It's 3:30???  Why on earth has this become such a big deal??

I wandered aimlessly through my quilt room looking for a new project.  I finally finished sewing this one together.  At about 50 inches square, it's small as quilts go, but my first attempt at paper piecing.  That's a new term for making the biggest mess ever stitching over the lines on paper from the back side of the project, then tearing off all that paper in the tiniest of pieces.

I laid out seven new projects on the table before discovering this little statement is SO true.  Decisions decisions.  I tried to find something easy and fast.  Between the time change and being sick, I knew better than to go with something complicated.   

Since I missed Halloween, I put away two and decided Thanksgiving just might work.  I'm doing everything I can to stay home another week to regain my strength.  Oh I feel like I could slay more dragons, but I'm also aware that I was really pretty sick.

In the interest of spreading the calories, here's the recipe for that New York Cheesecake.  It's so rich and decadent, you can feed eight people easily, in spite of it's 7" size.

3/4 cup crushed graham crackers  

2 tblsp sugar

2 tblsp melted butter

Mix together, smush it into the bottom of a 7" springform pan and set in the freezer

Here's the kicker.  I didn't have graham crackers, so I used a sleeve of Ritz crackers.  Worked like a charm.

16 oz cream cheese room temperature

1/2 cup sugar (I used brown sugar)

2 teaspoons all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon lemon peel

2 eggs room temperature

1 egg yolk room temperature

1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

Blend together cream cheese, sugar, cream, flour, lemon peel and vanilla until smooth.  Add in eggs one at a time until just combined.  Pour into pan on top of crust.

Add 1-1/2 cups of water to your Instant Pot. Insert a rack on which the pan will sit.  Cover the top of the springform pan with a piece of paper towel, then cover loosely with a piece of foil.  Make a sling of foil and gently lower the pan into the pot.  Close pressure valve.

Cook on high pressure for 37 minutes.  Allow 18 minutes of natural pressure release before releasing all the pressure and removing the pan, being careful to let any accumulated water drip off the top.  Let cool.  The center may be a little jiggly.

I topped it with pecan praline sauce that I can't find the recipe for.  Here's my best guess.

1/2 cup of brown sugar 

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 tsp vanilla

Boil for 4-5 minutes until thick, stir in

1/2 cup chopped pecans

When cool, both the cake and the sauce, I poured it over the top.  Letting it sit overnight in the fridge enhanced the flavors .... or maybe it was just my cold.  At any rate, super easy and super tasty!!

Today I have to pick up two quilts I left at my quilter's house in September and fight the NEW dragons that are my NEW yard crew.  Yesterday I found three cut drip irrigation lines.  Here we go again!!