Lefse Making Party

My mom's side of the family has many Norwegian traditions. My great Aunt Laurel was a founding member of the local Daughter's of Norway and she would bring the traditional lefse to Christmas each year. After she passed, my mom and her sisters took on the tradition and now all the women of the family get together about mid December to make lefse for our Christmas Eve gathering. We always have a fun time and there are giggles and laughter that reminds me how blessed I am to have such a close family.

Mom wanted me to video how we make the lefse so that our tradition is recorded and can be passed down. We all joke that we only do this because it's tradition, not because we are such big fans of lefse! It really doesn't matter, because just getting together to pass on the traditions, have fun and be together is worth all the work! Ufda!!

Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake

I have to admit that I'm a huge fan of cheesecake. So when Velata came out with no bake cheesecake, I knew that I was going to have increase the amount of miles I ran each week, no joke! I seriously have a problem too. I have yet to make an actual cheesecake from one of these mixes. I have made cheesecake fruit dip, individual cheesecake cups or what I call cheater cheesecake, eating it straight out of the bowl with graham crackers. Don't judge, it's the bomb!

So I knew that Thanksgiving was going to be a great occasion (excuse) to make cheesecake. At Velata convention they showed us these cute cheesecake cups in half pint mason jars. Way too adorable. So I went out to my canning jars looking for these little cups and found a case of quilted jelly jars that my Grandma Dennison had given me. She knew I was the only one still making jam. Problem is that these jars are meant for a wax seal, and I don't do that. But I knew someday I would find a cute use for them. Ding ding ding, cheesecake cups!

I used the Pumpkin pie cheesecake mix (sold out now, snif snif), and put the graham cracker crumbs on the bottom, then a layer of cheesecake, a layer of Velata pumpkin spice syrup, more cheesecake and then whipped cream. I topped it with a chocolate leaf! I'm not patient enough to make these pretty, but seriously, I don't care because they are sooo yummy!!

So thanks to Grandma for the cute jars, I'm thrilled to finally find the perfect use for them. They will make many people happy for years to come!