Today is quite the milestone. For the first time ever, we are sharing a food item that we had nothing to do with preparing.

That’s because it came from our friends Lyndsay and Nate. And if we’re completely honest, anything they make is worthy of sharing, posting, and shouting about from the mountaintops.

We’ve already casually mentioned Lyndsay and Nate in multiple posts [here and here and here], but this one is without a doubt the first of many wholly devoted to them.

We first met Lyndsay as a part of the “Lyndsay and Beth” duo. Both are geophysicists for the USGS and are sometimes seen as interchangeable in the workplace, despite their very different fields of specialty and their contrasting predilections for cats and dogs.

I’ve never met as badass of women as Beth and Lyndsay. I’ve never seen them in action, but I’ve heard tales of their intrepid adventures in places like the Middle East, where they trudged through the desert carrying their massive Laura Croft worthy equipment, intent to get the job done while all of the burly men sought shelter from the heat. I’ve listened to them recount stories of helicopter rides over the Alaskan coastline and trekking across the Arctic ice fields. They are total nerds, for sure, but they are also hard core adventurers.

And yet, as I write this, I am almost positive that they would chime in to counter my claims. But as a humble work-from-home writer, what they do is objectively cool. No doubt about it.

Their love for the earth extends well beyond their 9-to-5’s though. These gals also keep bees, can preserves from their gardens, and know all of the intricacies of food creation. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: these are the people you want at your dinner party.

Lyndsay and her husband Nate are what you would describe as urban homesteaders. They occupy about two acres of land in unincorporated Golden, which they have lovingly named Enandell Farm. They own “responsibly raised yet still indignant chickens”, they plant trees on Arbor Day, they contemplate getting a goat, and they cultivate the soil to grow all things imaginable. [They’re the ones who gave us our ghost peppers, btw.] Their fields are chock full of garden vegetables, hops, grape vines, and even compost piles, which means their kitchen is an endless laboratory of seasonal produce. Needless to say, anytime anything food related comes up, they are who we call. And if they’re ever in need of house sitters, we’re the first to jump on the job.

So when we invited them over for dinner as a “thank you” for watching Watson, we were particularly excited when Lyndsay said she wanted to bring something pumpkin-y and sweet.

What she ended up bringing was by far our favorite dessert of the season: a Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake from Epicurious. BUT instead of using a can of pumpkin as the recipe called for, she opted instead for one of her home-grown cheese pumpkins, which she roasted in the oven, dried out with a squeeze of the cheesecloth, and pureed before adding. Real pumpkins FTW!

This cheesecake comes with three distinct layers. The first is a hefty and delicious graham cracker / pecan crust, which Jason would have gladly eaten all by itself. [Actually, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure Jason only likes cheesecake because of the crust.] The middle layer is the gooey center where the flavors of pumpkin, cheesecake, and bourbon makeout in all of their delicious glory. And the top layer is a light and fluffy complement of sour cream, sugar, and more bourbon, as well as a blank canvas for strategic pecan placement.

And while we can’t really say how easy it was or wasn’t to make, we can certainly speak to how easy it was to eat! We devoured this in less than 36 hours and have thus officially included this newfound recipe  into our annual Fall recipe rotation

You can find the entire Epicurious recipe here.

In the meantime, enjoy the pretty pictures of Lyndsay’s creation.

Bon appetit!