I believe I’ve finally recovered from Thanksgiving. It was one filled with lots of great food, family, and friends—I hope yours was too. My contribution to this year’s meal was pecan pie cheesecake. It was traditional, yet not, and I loved that about it. (I used this recipe as a base.)

The pecan pie layer. The cheesecake layer comes next.

However, being the dietitian that I am, I made some substitutions that helped make this indulgence a little less indulgent—although no one at the table was the wiser. I used a mix of 1/3-less-fat (two 8-ounce blocks) and fat-free cream cheese (one 8-ounce block) in lieu of the full-fat variety, cut the butter in the crust to 1/4 cup, and used 2% milk in place of the heavy whipping cream.

The final cheesecake. The brown sugar in the cheesecake layer gave it a beautiful caramel hue.

The results were rich, creamy, and simply delicious. There are a couple other tweaks I plan to make next time I make it that I think will only make this lighter take even better.

Cheesecake is still on my brain. I’m thinking a Christmas cheesecake may be on the menu.