Thanksgiving Feasting

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving last week! We had a great time visiting with family up in Fort Wayne and now both look like Frank does in the picture below - sleepy, lazy, and relaxed. We won't be posting anything major for a week or so, but I wanted to at least get something up. So here are recipes for two of the things we brought up to contribute to the Thanksgiving feast.

The Recipes

Blackberry / Apple Crisp (adapted from Allrecipes)

4 Apples

8 oz Blackberries

2 Cups Flour

2 Cups Rolled Oats

1-1/2 Cups Brown Sugar

1 Cup (2 Sticks) Butter

1 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon

1/2 Teaspoon Ground Nutmeg

Pinch of Salt

Preheat the oven to 350. Peel, core, and slice the apples, mix them with the berries, and then set aside. Combine the flour, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a large bowl. Cut the butter into this mixture until crumbly. Place half of the mixture on the bottom of a 9"x13" baking dish, place the apple/berry mixture on top of it, and then cover that with the rest of the flour mixture. Bake for about 45 minutes or until apples are tender.

Cheesecake Cookie Bars (adapted from Bashful Bao)

For the Cookie Layer

1 Cup Butter

1 Cup Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

1 Teaspoon Vanilla

1-1/2 Cups Flour

Pinch of Salt

1-1/2 Cups Chocolate Chips

1-1/2 Cups Peanut Butter Chips

For the Cheesecake Layer

16 Ounces Cream Cheese

2/3 Cup Sugar

2 Eggs

2 Teaspoons Vanilla

Preheat the oven to 375 and grease a 9"x13" baking dish. Make the cookie layer first. Melt the butter and then mix with the brown sugar. Then mix in the eggs, vanilla, and salt. Once everything is well integrated fold in the flour. Then fold in the chocolate and peanut butter chips, but reserve some to sprinkle on top later. Once everything is well combined spread two-thirds of the dough on the bottom of the baking dish. Then make your cheesecake layer, which is super easy. Just combine everything in a bowl until well mixed and smooth. Then spread this over the cookie dough in the dish, drop the rest of the cookie dough over the cheesecake randomly, and then sprinkle the remaining chocolate and peanut butter chips over that. Place in the oven and bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

End Results

Both recipes turned out nicely. I had made the crisp before, so I knew that would be good, and just look at the recipe for the bars - how could they not be good? Both were big hits at both Thanksgivings we attended, so it seems we aren't the only ones who liked them.

I modified both recipes, but not much (I've written it out above with my modifications). Blackberries seemed like a good way to add a bit of colour and a little extra flavor to the crisp. Apple pie was already being provided at Thanksgiving, so having just plain apple crisp might have been a little redundant. I also elected to use two Braeburn apples and two Granny Smith apples for even more diversity of flavor. The combo worked well and I'll probably use those two again next time. I didn't bother using peanut butter cups for the bars since that sounded like it would be more work - why bother chopping up peanut butter cups when I could just mix in peanut butter chips? I also doubled the recipe because we had a lot of people to feed. And I added a pinch of salt. Just because these are desserts doesn't mean they shouldn't be well seasoned. It's science, look it up.

Final Thoughts

These are both good recipes and I'm sure we'll be using them again (although not often because holy crap that's a lot of butter). Improvements could probably be made - maybe a caramel to go with the crisp or perhaps a strawberry or raspberry drizzle for the bars. I'll try playing with those options next time and see how things turn out. Let me know in the comments if there are any other changes you think could be good. It would be nice to get a little more interactive with ya'll. :) 

Thanks for reading and have a great week!