Friday Funday

Ahhh...I love Fridays.  You feel so hopeful.  The entire weekend ahead of you and all of its potential.  This Friday was made even better because I said, "Hey work!  I know it's only 1:00, but I'm freakin' outta here."  Yeah, sort of like that.  C'mon.  It's only a part-time job anyway.  My man swooped me up in the freezing cold and rainy weather and undeterred, we headed to the dog park.  You see, now that we are a family unit, the three of us living under one roof, I have become the secondary caretaker of my dog, Lola.  I can't quite figure out if it's because Mr. Siss loves her more than I do, or if it's just because I am inherently more selfish and lazy than he is.  Wait, no.  THAT can't be true.  How many Saturdays have I worried that he might have bed sores from spending so many hours on the couch watching football??  I think he is just an attentive caretaker, which is huge potential selling points for fatherhood no?  That's fine by me.  I'm not very detail oriented and he is, so if that means he's the one wiping more snotty noses than me....by all means, have at it!  Yay Mr. Siss. 

Cheesecake - I found a recipe for a pumpkin toffee cheesecake and my man loves him some cheesecake.   Since his birthday was on Saturday I wanted to try out this new recipe.  It called for a springform pan.  A what??  I had no idea what that was.   Did I mention that I've NEVER made a cheesecake, much less a pumpkin toffee variety?  Luckily I had no trouble buying a Springform pan at Target for $12.  Mr. Siss tried to talk me into buying the three pack for $13.  Three?!  I'll be lucky if this one gets used twice a year!  I bought some bread pans too and we were on our merry way. 

This has been the year of the pumpkin in our household.   Now that we are living in the good ol' midwest and my friends are nowhere to be found, I have had to get creative.  But there are a million and one ways to busy yourself so it hasn't been too much of a problem.  Cooking can really take up a LOT of your time after all.  I decided that I really wanted to make my own pumpkin puree.  I am about three pumpkins in at this point.  They aren't those itty bitty ones.  But they're not the big carvers either.  Medium size.  And CHEAP!  The produce guy had to go get them from the back since they pulled them off the floor two days after Halloween.  Dumb.  But at least they still had them.  I saw them at another store for 39 cents a pound!!  Mr. Siss has currently issued a moratorium on the pumpkin puree business for now.  I will have to organize a sneak attack approach after Thanksgiving.  He wasn't real crazy after all having to get out the hacksaw to help me get into the suckers.  Anyway, those websites that go on and on about how easy it is to just whip up your own pumpkin puree?  They're lying.  All a bunch of big, fat liars.  It was labor intensive.  I will say though, this was more due to the fact that they were as hard as could be (that's what she said) and took a lot of work to get open.  Once you are past that point, yeah, it's not that bad.  Maybe you can find softer pumpkins that I did.  I don't know.  If you don't have a hacksaw, soften them in a crockpot or oven.  It will stick cook the pumpkin inside so that when it is soft enough to open, the rest is already done cooking too.  It was easy as could be to scrape out.

I think I'll let the pictures finish telling most of the story.

The shortbread crust.  I just used Sandies shortbread cookies.  Cheater!

Mmm...pumpkin puree.  (I have a hot love affair with my blender okay?!)

THREE packages of these!  Shhh...don't tell Mr. Siss that it's lower in fat.  Mr. Siss + high calories = Love 4Ever

Yay...new kitchen gadgets. 

I pride myself on spilling as many things as possible on my recipe.  I want it to reveal how much I really slaved over something.

I don't know about you, but this is what real cooking looks like in my kitchen.  Giada, Paula Dean, Rachel Ray....you listening?!!  Stop making us feel inadequate already, geez.

It has a sour cream layer that you slather over the cheesecake layer.  And toffee bits.  Lots of toffee bits.  Then I chilled overnight. 

Pre-moving to Kansas, capturing a photo of me in an apron well, was akin to seeing a unicorn.  So I needed it recorded.  Jeff, this one's for you!

Mmmm....warm pumpkin bread.

Happy birthday to my love.  I know, the candles are kind of hideous.  But he was so dang impatient to bite into the thing at that point that it didn't really matter.  We are adults after all.