Cooking By The Book


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HARVEST PUMPKIN PIE CHEESECAKE  
Setting the Scene:  
My book fits in the self-help category. You may wonder what self-help has to do  
with pumpkin cheesecake. Well, just like my Harvest Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake (YUM!),  
the book is spicy, loaded with zest and spunk. And believe it or not, I mention cheesecake  
three times in the book. No, it’s not one of the 9 habits of maximum happiness. But it  
comes pretty close! Here is an excerpt from Chapter 8 – Great Expectations. I hope you  
enjoy the book as much as I know you’ll enjoy the cheesecake.  
Excerpt from CLIMB YOUR STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN: THE 9 HABITS OF  
MAXIMUM HAPPINESS (ISBN 0-595-17826-X):  
Poet Emily Dickinson tells the same story in a different way: “Eden is that old-  
fashioned house we dwell in every day without suspecting our abode until we drive  
away.” All the stones we need to build our Stairway to Heaven are within reach. We just  
have to recognize them.  
And we have to move them. “God doesn’t make orange juice, God makes  
oranges,” Jesse Jackson says. God doesn’t make happiness either. He gives wonderful  
things to be happy about. We don’t find ever-lasting love, despite what the songs say—  
we make love everlasting when we want the love we have.  
Cherry blossoms swirling in the breeze across the streets of Washington, D.C.  
The haunting call of the loon on the early morning lake. The taste of pumpkin  
cheesecake. The aroma of lilacs floating in the spring air. (The aroma floats, not the  
lilacs.) The laughter of children. The warmth of a campfire on a chilly Algonquin*  
autumn evening. When we really look at what wehave, we see a beautiful world we  
should never take for granted. The Rolling Stones were wrong; we can get satisfaction.  
*
A favorite camp ground of ours.  
HARVEST PUMPKIN PIE CHEESECAKE  
CRUST:  
1
1
cup of ginger snap crumbs  
T of canola or olive oil  
FILLING:  
1
3
3
2
1
1
1
-½ cups pureed pumpkin (not pre-mixed pumpkin pie filling)  
bricks cream cheese (softened)  
large eggs  
T cream (table cream, whipping cream – the heavier, the better)  
tsp vanilla extract  
cup packed brown sugar  
T cinnamon  
7
7


Page
76 77 78 79 80

Quick Jump
1 28 56 83 111