Mini Baking day

My in-laws are visiting for a couple of days so I whipped up some goodies for them.

I made carrot cake, pumpkin-cranberry bread, white chocolate cherry chunkies, and chocolate chip cookies.

Monday Menu Plan

We have family visiting at the end of the week, so things may change.

Monday - Catfish and potatoes

Tuesday - Taquitos

Wednesday - Tortillini

Thursday - Breakfast (eggs, bacon and bagels)

Friday - Bison burgers and chips

Saturday - Sandwiches

Sunday - Spaghetti but this may change

Pumpkin - Cranberry Bread and Pumpkin seeds

After making my first batch of pumpkin puree yesterday, I was very excited about trying to make something with it. Here's the result:

Pumpkin - Cranberry Bread:
1 c all-purpose flour
1 c packed brown sugar
1 T baking powder
1 t cinnamon
1/4 t salt
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t ground nutmeg
1/8 t ground ginger
1 c pumpkin puree
1/2 c milk
2 eggs
1/3 c shortening
1 c all-purpose flour
1 c dried cranberries

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl, reserving one cup of flour.

Add in pumpkin, milk, eggs, and shortening and then mix together with a mixer. Once that is all incorporated add the additional cup of flour.

Add in the cranberries and then put in a slightly greased loaf pan.

Bake for 60 minutes at 350°. The bread is done when a wooden skewer comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes on a wire wrack. Remove loaf from pan and cool completely.

James liked the bread. I modified the original recipe because I didn't have some of the ingredients (I posted the recipe I used). I think I would like to add some walnuts to this bread the next time I make it.

We also used the pumpkin seeds. I mixed some butter, brown sugar and cinnamon together and then added the seeds. Baked them for 20 minutes at 350°, stirring several times during the baking. James really liked them although I think I overcooked them a little.

Pumpkin puree - the real deal!

Over the last couple of weeks I've read about people making pumpkin puree, not just using the stuff out of a can. Anyone who knows me, knows that I would rather make everything from scratch. We picked up a baking pumpkin, these are smaller than the carving pumpkins, yesterday and got to work today.

First we washed the pumpkin and cut it in half. Then we cleaned out the inside of the pumpkin. Those are James' hands because I was quite disgusted by the smell. (Why can I dissect any animal, but a fruit or vegetable instantly makes me nauseous?)

This is what the inside of both halves should look like.

Place the pumpkins cut side down on a baking sheet lined with foil. Most people who make their own pumpkin puree apparently use a pressure cooker. Since I don't have a pressure cooker, I had to use the oven to roast the pumpkins. Put the pan in a preheated 350° oven and bake for 1 hour. The pumpkins are done when a knife easily penetrates the pumpkin.

These are the pumpkin seeds after I cleaned off all the gunk. We are going to save some to try to plant next year and I'm researching recipes for making flavored pumpkin seeds.

When the pumpkins come out of the oven, let them cool a little bit and then scrape out the insides into a bowl. The picture above is what they looked like after I scraped out all the pulp.

Using either a food processor or a mixer, mix the pumpkin until it is pureed.

We got about 4 cups of pumpkin puree out of one pumpkin. I kept one bag out and froze the other three. From what I've read, pumpkin can't be canned at home, it has to be frozen. I currently have a pumpkin bread baking in the oven and I'll let you know how it goes after James tests it...you know I don't eat pumpkin!

The pumpkin cost $1.99 and we spent about 30 minutes of our time working on it. It is probably less expensive to just buy the cans if you factor in the time cost, but to me it is worth it to have something natural in a food I'm giving James.

No pictures

We picked up a few things today while running errands. Extra lean ground beef was on sale for $1.77 a pound at Sprouts so we got a couple packages for $6.21. We also spent $9.40 at Central Market for some Challah bread (we'll get two breakfast meals of french toast out of that loaf), a baking pumpkin, two avocados, and some chocolate covered almonds.

Another pic of Marshmallow Man

I can't help it . . . I just can't stop taking pictures of this beautiful boy! He's just so handsome!