Thanksgiving is coming soon and for my Canadian friends, that means this Monday!   So I made these cookies to celebrate the season.  I adapted a recipe from Sandra Lee, from Food Network, who is one of my heroes as she has inspired me to take recipes and streamline them when possible.  So here is my recipe for Pumpkin Cheesecake Cookies:

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 stick of butter or margarine, softened

1 egg (separate white from yolk)

1 package of crushed graham crackers (one of the 3 packages that comes in a box)

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/3 cup whipped cream cheese (low calorie ok)

1/4 cup canned or cooked pumpkin

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a bowl beat butter, brown sugar and egg white only.  Add graham crackers, flour and baking powder. This will be the “crust” of the cookie.

The mixture should look like this:

Roll the crust mixture into 1″ balls and put on a baking sheet (lined with parchment works best).  Flatten the cookie crust to make an indentation for your topping..

In a separate bowl, mix together cream cheese, pumpkin, sugar, the egg yolk and vanilla. This will be your topping.  Spoon this into the little pockets of your crusts.

Bake about 12 -14 minutes until set and crust is light brown.

They are just the right amount of cheesecake and crust and I always am asked for the recipe.

Enjoy and if you are celebrating next week – Happy Thanksgiving!  I am thankful for your readership!