Shopping, cheesecake, and Rummikub...

It was a wet day in Richmond today. Being unfit for outdoor adventures, we spent the whole day indoors. We did venture out for our copious ingridients for our forthcoming Thanksgiving feast, and we only needed to hit 5 stores with 3 separate trips. Why is that you always forget simple, yet critical ingridients? Anyway, my contribution for the dinner tomorrow is dessert. Eyeing a recipe I spotted in Bon Appetite...a delicious looking cheesecake with pumpkin apple butter. My partner in this venture was Jodi, one of the newest members of our far flung family, and yes, Benjamin takes the honor for the most recent. I digress...back to the cheesecake. After several steps, lots of ingridients, and making a complete mess of the kitchen, we ended up with a dessert that will be quite yummy. The funny part of this dessert was that the pumpkin apple butter part is apparently served on the side versus in the actually cheesecake. I guess it pays to fully read a recipe. I do have to point out that the apple butter portion of this dessert came from a purchase at Shirley Plantation. Since I deviated from the official recipe substituting pecans for pinenuts, I have decided to rechristen the name to be Shirley Plantation Pumpkin Apple Butter Cheesecake. Today wasn't all work though, we managed to fit in a few games of Rummikub...a favorite of John and his Mom. All in all...a very productive day.