A Last Minute Addition.

The other day Abigail was getting excited about Thanksgiving. Most of all, she's excited about her Grandparents from Buffalo visiting, but then she started talking about the food, and she got really excited about pumpkin pie. Uh-Oh. Right there my internal alarm started going off. My decadent streuseled pumpkin pie is not what she is thinking of...Houston, we have a problem. To further compound my problem, Andy had taken Abigail to Sam's last week where she sampled a pumpkin pie cheesecake (or something similar) and she loved it. She wanted that one. Andy didn't try it, so he couldn't tell me what it was like, and the only thing I really got out of Abigail was that she liked the frozen whipped cream on top.

So, my good friends at Recipezaar to the rescue. Autumn Pumpkin Cream Cheese Pie is what I settled on. I thought it should produce a pie somewhere between a cheese pie and a custardy pumpkin pie, and I was spot on. I had too much filling for the pie shell, so I was able to bake up a bit in a ramekin for tasting purposes. It is very light and fluffy in texture. The cheese flavor was really mild, but I suspect that after chilling it should taste more like cheesecake. And the pumpkin pie flavor was there as well. All around, a nice lighter-textured pie. Abigail enjoyed the taste she had, and topped with whipped cream it will make a delightful late-minute addition to my Thanksgiving feast.

Autumn Pumpkin Cream Cheese Pie

8 ounces cream cheese
2 cups pumpkin puree
1 can sweetened condensed milk
3 eggs
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice ( I used a combination of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg)
1 9- inch unbaked pie shell

Preheat oven to 350.
Combine cream cheese& condensed milk until smooth.
Stir in pureed pumpkin,spice& eggs,mix until well combined.
Pour into pie shell.
Bake for 45 minutes or until knife inserted 1" from the edge comes out clean.
Serve warm and enjoy!