gobble, gobble!

some things i am thankful for: my incredible, loving mother; my angel on earth of a grandmother; good friends; cozy blankets; slightly grey fall mornings; having a nice home and a steady job; having a washer/drier in my home; nice, hot showers; jacuzzi tubs; relatively good health; good tea; fancy coffee drinks and baked goods; great music and movies; days off of work; the daily freedoms that we often take for granted as american citizens.

to celebrate thanksgiving, i wanted to bake up so love to bring to my uncle’s house. since my grandma covers the apple pie, i figured i should stay away from anything apple…the next logical festive choice was pumpkin. but pumpkin what? i was deciding between cookies and bars, and since i have made pumpkin cookies several times this season, bars it was! i looked through about 20 recipes to get ideas since i wanted to make up my own recipe. i modified a similar base to the one i use for my berry bars to include graham cracker crumbs instead of flour; i melted some chocolate and threw in pecans and butterscotch; i modified a pumpkin cake into what i hoped would be more of a bar; and finally, i took the cream cheese filling from the pumpkin muffins and threw it on top, for good measure. i was a little afraid that i was putting too much in, but hoped that everything would compliment eachother nicely.

i took it out of the oven when it looked done to me and the toothpick came out pretty clean… when i moved it onto the cooling rack, one part split in the middle and looked under cooked. the only issue is that the cream cheese was starting to separate and brown, so perhaps that needs to be left out entirely, or frozen longer. i might also decrease the egg count, but without making it again, i do not know for sure if that would work. the end pieces came out alright, but overall i would say it was a good idea in theory but a bust.

hrrrm… i am not posting the recipe. i will have to play with this more before posting one, as i would not want you to end up with something that is not good. apologies. at least i had the delicious zucchini casserole that i made last night to bring– which was a big hit, as always!