But Don't Dogs Love Birthdays?

Just saw this picture today and couldn't stop laughing, especially considering these posts from the past:

Chloe's Birthday 2011

and

Chloe's Birthday 2012

source

How do you celebrate your dog's birthday?

Pumpkin Cheesecake Trifle

Today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada, and in honour of that, I made Pumpkin Cheesecake Trifle.

I first mentioned this dessert last week as something to make to welcome in autumn. I'm not a huge pumpkin fan, but I do love cheesecake, especially the light, no-bake kind. I'd first seen this recipe here, so if you'd like to see the original (hers is much fancier than mine), give it a look.

The recipe is pretty simple and sort of similar to Oreo Dirt Cake.

Ingredients:


15 cookies, crushed into crumbs
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 pkg cream cheese (8 oz), softened
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice**
1 container (12 oz) whipped topping (like Cool Whip)

**Note: if you don't have or can't find pumpkin pie spice, it's very easy to make yourself:

1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon ginger
3/4 teaspoon allspice

Directions:


First you need to crush up the cookies - or buy cookie/graham cracker crumbs. I used shortbread cookies with chocolate swirls and blitzed them in my Ninja blender. Love that blender - I use it for so much. A couple of seconds in the blender and I had perfect cookie crumbs.

If you don't have a blender you can put the cookies in a Ziploc bag and crush them with a rolling pin or heavy-bottomed drinking glass.

Mix the crumbs in a bowl with a tablespoon of melted butter. Make sure the crumbs are well coated. Divide the crumbs up into the serving dishes, reserving a tablespoon of crumbs for garnish at the end. I used lowball drinking glasses and used a flat bottomed spice bottle to press the crumbs firmly into the bottom of each.

In a new mixing bowl, combine the pumpkin puree and cream cheese, and stir until they are thoroughly blended. I used the Ninja for this as well but you could use electric beaters. Add the vanilla, sugar, and pumpkin spice. Stir until smooth. Add one half of the container of whipped topping and stir again until everything is well mixed.

Spoon a layer of the pumpkin mixture on top of the cookie layer, follow with a layer of the whipped topping. Repeat with the pumpkin mixture and the whipped topping until you get to the top of the glass. Sprinkle a bit of the reserved cookie crumbs onto the top of the dessert for garnish. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Isn't that pretty? These turned out rather large - Tom and I could easily share one. I'd like to use something like shot glasses next time.

It's a really light dessert with just the right amount of pumpkin flavour. And they take no time at all to make. Twenty minutes tops. And that means you get to enjoy more of the holiday instead of being stuck in the kitchen.

I hope all of my Canadian friends had a terrific Thanksgiving, and everyone else had a wonderful weekend no matter whether you were celebrating or not!

~~~~~

I'm linking up here this week!

Spice Up Your Life

No big leaps forward on the cupboard door sanding front; I had errands to run yesterday and didn't have time to sand a thing. But I did get started on some fall decorating, as evidenced by the state of my craft room right now:

Either that or we've been burglarized and the thieves were only looking for glitter and ribbon.

There is one kitchen project finished - it's a small change but it has had a big impact.

This tiny shelf above the stove is the spice rack we've been using for years. It was already installed when we moved in, and since we didn't have another spice rack we just kept using it. It was better than nothing, right?

As you can see, it only holds about 10-12 bottles. So we would keep our most-used spices there and everything else was shoved into the pantry. It was kind of gross though because the bottles would get covered in cooking grease and have to be wiped off all the time.

But the spice you want is never the spice that's handy (I think that's a famous saying, isn't it?), so I decided to do a little rearranging. We have a drawer right beside the stove that is just a catch-all for things we don't know what else to do with. A junk drawer I guess you'd say.

It wasn't really junky though, it just had takeout menus, matches, candles, a measuring tape. Oh and a turkey baster - because you never know when I'm going to get the crazy urge to roast a turkey. For the record, that'd be never.

I moved the menus to the front hall drawer, threw out some of the stuff we never use (bye bye baster) and relocated everything else - to a rarely used shelf up above. It seems we have more storage space than we thought.

With an entire empty drawer available I started moving the spices over. Everything we use fits in perfectly, with the larger refill bottles staying in the pantry. It all looks so tidy, and it's nice having all of my spices right there beside the stove, where I actually use them.

You might wonder why I didn't alphabetize the jars - I did at first, but I didn't like how they looked so I changed everything back. Instead, the spices I use most often are closer to the front.

Wow, I didn't realize we had so much garlic. Just call me Buffy.