Killer Thanksgiving Recipe's

This year I got nearly all my recipes for Thanksgiving off of allrecipes.com. I only used the ones that were rated highly, so we had a pretty good meal. Here are what we felt were the top performers...

Gourmet Sweet Potatoes


5 sweet potatoes
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1/4 cup butter, softened
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions:
1 - Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
2 - Bake sweet potatoes 35 minutes in the preheated oven, or until they begin to soften. Cool slightly, peel, and mash.
3 - In a large bowl, mix the mashed sweet potatoes, salt, 1/4 cup butter, eggs, vanilla extract, cinnamon, sugar, and heavy cream. Transfer to the prepared baking dish.
4 - In a medium bowl, combine 1/4 cup butter, flour, brown sugar, and chopped pecans. Mix with a pastry blender or your fingers to the consistency of course meal. Sprinkle over the sweet potato mixture.
5 - Bake 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until topping is crisp and lightly browned.


As a family, we are all agreed that these were the very best part of the meal, mainly because they were pretty much candy!


Whole Cranberry Sauce

1 cup white sugar
1 cup orange juice
1 (12 ounce) package fresh cranberries
1/4 tsp. cinnamon


Directions:
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, dissolve the sugar in the orange juice. Stir in the cinnamon and cranberries Cook until the cranberries start to pop (about 10 minutes). Remove from heat, and transfer to a bowl. Cranberry sauce will thicken as it cools.

Tobin usually is not a fan of cranberry sauce, but he liked this.

And, I am way excited to have come up with the following recipe! I may even post it on allrecipes.com.

Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecake

Crust:
1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons butter, melted
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg white
1/4 cup Nutella
1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 - Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2 - In a large bowl, blend melted butter, sugar and vanilla. Beat in eggs. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Gradually blend into the egg mixture. Spread the batter into 9 inch springform pan.
Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes. Allow to cool.

Filling:
2 8 oz. bars cream cheese
1 1/2 c. Nutella
3 whole eggs
1 egg yolk

1 - Preheat oven to 325.
2 - Whip cream cheese and Nutella. Add eggs and beat until well blended.
Pour over crust in springform pan.
3 - Bake on mid-high oven rack for 1 hour 15 minutes or until middle is set.
4 - Drag metal knife around the edge. Let cool completely before removing outer edge of pan. Refrigerate until time to serve.