Working Girl Cooks!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! By now you are all probably in a food coma from stuffing your face all day… ok maybe that’s just me! I have felt so bad about not getting the chance to post in such a long time I thought I would try to squeeze in a post before I leave for my grandparents cabin in Twain Harte, CA for the weekend. Twain Harte is a small little town just north of Yosemite, named after Mark Twain. It is in the middle of nowhere and we will have no TV and no internet. I’m kind of excited. Sometimes it is just nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

We celebrated thanksgiving with my Dad and his family today. Tomorrow we will celebrate another thanksgiving with my Grandparents, my mom, and my brother. I get to do all the cooking tomorrow and I have been prepping all week! For today’s feast I just provided dessert.

Thanksgiving this year was supposed to be in my parents newly remodeled kitchen. But as these things go, it is taking way longer than planned and the kitchen was not done in time. In fact, the whole entire house is pretty well torn up and they are temporarily living in an apartment as it the house is unlivable at the moment. The apartment is sweet, but much smaller than our big family is used to.

The holidays are always hard for me. Growing up my parents always fought over who got my brother and I for the holidays. As we got a bit older they started making us decide who we wanted to be with for the holidays. I hated it. It made me dread this time of year. Over the last few years I have pretty much avoided my dad and his family during the holidays. I just couldn’t bring myself to deal with all the drama. This year I was kind of planning to do the same, especially since I haven’t really been talking to anyone in my dad’s family for the past six months.

But my mom convinced me that they are my family, whether I like it or not, and that you are supposed to spend the holidays with your family. So, grudgingly, I agreed with her, and agreed to go with her to my dad’s house for Thanksgiving.

I woke up this morning in a panic. “What am I doing?” I thought to myself. I am just putting myself in a horrible situation and setting myself up to be disappointed and hurt. I was so anxious. I tried to keep myself busy in the morning. I did some baking, went for a run and was fairly successful and calming myself down.

I promised myself if I got really anxious or it was too awkward I would just leave, I just had to show up, I didn’t have to stay. We got to my parents apartment at 2:45pm and rang the doorbell. No one answered. We waited awhile and it became pretty apparent no one was there. So I called my stepmom. “We are at the house cooking, didn’t dad call you and tell you?”

“umm….no”

My dad had called everyone else to tell them, but not me. Grrrr…the day was already starting off badly. So we got back in the car and drove to the torn down house where they were cooking in their temporary makeshift kitchen because the kitchen in the apartment was too small. As soon as we stepped inside I noticed two dogs running around. “My parents hate dogs, my step-mom is allergic to dogs. Why are their dogs here?” I wondered.

Apparently, my step-brother had just gotten a puppy and had brought if over along with his girlfriends dog. I have a dog, I would have loved to bring my dog, no one told me I could bring my dog! Grrrr! This is not going well!

But I brushed it off. I wasn’t going to get upset. I could be strong. And I was kind of glad that I did. The rest of the day turned out surprisingly well. We all got along, no fighting, no drama, food was good. Overall, despite a rocky start, the day turned out well. Phew!

Still glad it’s over though.

Here are the recipes for the desserts I made:

Holiday Trifles

Ingredients: 1 package gingerbread cake mix, 1 pint heavy whipping cream, 1 container pumpkin butter (premade or store bought), dulce de leche or caramel.

Directions:

1. Bake the gingerbread cake according to package directions. Cool completely.

2. Whip the cream until stiff peaks form. Fold in pumpkin butter. If you need a recipe for pumpkin butter here is a good one.

3. To assemble, cut the gingerbread cake into squares. Place a square in the bottom of a clear cup. Add a tablespoon full of pumpkin whipped cream. Add another square of gingerbread and another spoonful of pumpkin whipped cream. Top with dulce de leche or caramel sauce.

4. This dessert is best if made the night before and frozen. Allow dessert to thaw completely before serving.

Mini Cheesecakes

I used the filling recipe from Baking and Books. The recipe can be found here.

Note: I baked a full cheesecake and mini cheesecakes so I made the full recipe and it was still enough. If you just want to do mini cheesecakes half the recipe is plenty!

I greased a muffin pan and placed a gingersnap cookie on the bottom of each cup. Then I filled the cup with filling and baked at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes. They probably would have turned out a lot cuter if I had used muffin cups.

Enjoy!