A Tale of Two Cheesecakes

My dad's birthday is only a few days after Father's Day. Which means what's normally a hard task (what to get the guy who has it all?) is even harder. Or that's my excuse. So this year, the Hubs and I decided we'd cook up a feast for my dad for Father's Day. Okay, okay, it's kind of sort of a totally selfish gift, because it meant a) we got to BBQ and b) go in the pool and hot tub at my dad's house. Still, we had to actually cook the meal.

Anyway, as it turned out, it rained all day on Father's Day, so we ended up just staying inside and drinking. Or rather, my stepmom and I did, while the Hubs and my dad manned the BBQ with beers in hand.

A few days before the BBQ/gift, the Hubs' parents told us they'd be in town for Father's Day too. So we decided, if 1 BBQ for 1 Dad = Good Idea, then 2 BBQs for 2 Dads = Even Better Idea!

We decided we'd go to my Dad's on Saturday, then drive back to the city on Sunday and host BBQ #2 at our place.

"We'll just get double of everything," The Hubs said. Which in theory sounds like a good idea, and really isn't much more work.

Except, who wants to eat the same meal two nights in a row? Not me, says the girl who really hates leftovers. So instead, I got a brilliant idea that I would do everything similar, but different.

I agreed we could have steaks on both nights, but everything else I'd make different.

The vegetable was easy. I brought broccoli for BBQ 1 and asparagus for BBQ 2.

The dip was a bit harder. I made a roasted red pepper dip for BBQ 1, then remembered my inlaws don't like peppers, so made an artichoke dip for BBQ 2.

I served the dips with potato cheese bread at BBQ 1. Multigrain at BBQ 2.

Then came dessert: I decided on cheesecake. Except, I only have one amazing cheesecake recipe (even if it is out of season).

It's tried and true (read: I've made it enough times that finally I don't screw it up). But what to do for BBQ 2?

And so the hunt began. Although cheesecake #1 is apple cinnamon and amazing, my general rule off thumb is that for a dessert to be good it must contain 2 ingredients: chocolate and caramel.

Then I found this recipe for Turtle Cheesecake.

The only trouble was, I couldn't find the Kraft caramels. And that's when the trouble began. First I improvised with caramel dip. Then I swapped the regular crust for an Oreo crust (more chocolate = more yum!).

The first cheesecake tasted amazing. It's too bad that the caramel oozed out the middle of it, so it didn't exactly look pretty. I took that cheesecake to work.

Then I tried again. But I left the caramel on the stove while I went to look at my dad's plumbing situation (enter yawn here). It burned to the bottom of the pot.

Finally, I made my own caramel sauce and cheesecake #3 turned out perfectly. By which point I was sort of sick of cheesecake altogether.

But the Dads were happy. So I guess that's all that matters.