Fall Cooking

This time of year is my favorite time to cook. There are so many good things to bake in the fall and they all make your house smell so good!! I have never made any kind of bread. I didn't even own bread pans until I decided that I wanted to make pumpkin bread. So I bought two bread pans and started baking yesterday. I just love anything with pumpkin in it and this is definitely the time of year to cook with it. So I made 2 loaves of pumpkin bread and just had to throw in some chocolate chips to make it that much sweeter. I found the recipe on allrecipes.com and altered it slightly. It was delicious!! I kept one loaf and gave the other away. The loaf I kept is almost gone and it hasn't even been 24 hours since it came out of the oven!

Pumpkin Bread Recipe

2 cups canned pumpkin puree
1 cup vegetable oil
2-2/3 cups white sugar
4 eggs
3 cups and 2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 cup chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9x5 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the pumpkin, oil, sugar, and eggs. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves; stir into the pumpkin mixture until well blended. Fold in chocolate chips. Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared pans.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour. The top of the loaf should spring back when lightly pressed.

We probably could have just eaten Pumpkin Bread for dinner, but while I was in the cooking spirit I made Butternut Squash Soup. I had gone to the farmer's market a couple weeks ago and picked up some butternut squash. I love this soup, I just hate peeling and cubing the squash so I put off making it. Boy was I happy I made it though. Not only did it taste good, but our house smelt sooo Good! This is also a recipe from allrecipes.com that we got last fall, but have altered it quite a bit trying to cut back on the fat and cream! It is very forgiving, so play with it to cater to your taste.

Creamy Butternut Squash Soup

6 Tbsp chopped onion
1 Tbsp butter
6 cups peeled and cubed butternut squash
3 cups water
4 cubes chicken bouillon
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
4-5 oz cream cheese

In stockpot, saute onions in butter until tender. Add squash, water, bouillon, black pepper, and cayenne pepper (this adds a nice kick to the soup, but if you aren't a huge spicy pepper fan, cut back on the cayenne pepper, though don't omit it). Bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes or until squash is tender. Strain out squash and puree squash with cream cheese in a blender until smooth. It may take two batches in the blender. Return to stockpot and heat. Do not allow to boil. This serves 3-4 people. I usually double the recipe so we can have left-overs!

My friend Morgan posted a Butternut Squash Soup recipe that sounds a lot healthier without the cream cheese. I haven't tried it but I have never been disappointed with one of her recipes!!

While I was hard at work, Rob and Evan were playing with my 29 cent costume beads. This is how charming they looked!Rob couldn't resist and he broke out the Christmas music while I was cooking. The smells and tastes of the approaching holidays were just too tempting and he had to hear a few songs. Happy Fall Cooking!