Easy Cooking: Pumpkin Nut Bread

Canned "pumpkin," one of the best convenience foods in grocery stores, languishes on shelves 10 months of the year. While it can be used anytime, cooks simply don't think about using it except around Halloween and Thanksgiving. Too bad. Pureed and ready to use in recipes calling for cooked pumpkin, it can be used to make pie, cake, muffins, cookies, pudding, and bread.

About the quote marks around the word pumpkin: Canned pumpkin is really canned squash in most brands. For many years, pureed winter squash (hubbard, banana and the like) has been pawned off as pumpkin in cans labeled solid-pack pumpkin. It makes good breads, etc., but be aware that it's not pumpkin, which is actually a gourd.

To be sure you're using pumpkin in your pumpkin nut bread, you can cook up your own pumpkin puree from a fresh one. It takes a bit of effort, but not a lot. Cut a small (not baby) or medium pumpkin in half vertically, and scoop out the seeds. (Save seeds to roast for snacks, if you want.) Place the two pumpkin halves, cut-side down, on a Pam-sprayed baking sheet. Bake at 450 degrees until you can easily pierce the pumpkin or until it collapses, usually 45 minutes to an hour. Scoop out the pumpkin flesh and place in a food processor or blender. Blend until smooth and use as you would canned pumpkin. Note: Don't use the mammoth cow pumpkins. The pulp is stringy and doesn't make good puree. And don't use the carved Halloween pumpkins. Once they're cut and allowed to sit around, they acquire bacteria on the cut surfaces.

To learn how to roast pumpkin seeds, go to allrecipes.com and type in roasted pumpkin seeds. Other cooks give their hints for getting the pulp off the seeds before roasting, a necessary preliminary step.

Now for the bread recipe. Back when I made food gifts for Christmas presents -- and when I drank coffee made with drip grind from a can -- I used the coffee cans for baking the bread. Now I use regular loaf pans, the nonstick kind. If you want to give the breads as gifts, consider too the mini-loaf pans.

2/3 cup canola oil

2 2/3 cups granulated sugar (honey or brown sugar may be used, but the bread will be a different texture)

4 eggs

1 can (about 1 pound) pumpkin (Libby's is most familiar brand and size may be 14 or 15 ounces)

2/3 cup water

3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

2/3 cup chopped walnuts

2/3 cup golden raisins (dark kind OK)

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Have ready two Pam-sprayed 9x5-inch bread loaf pans.

Using a large wooden spoon, beat the oil with the sugar until mixture is creamy. Beat in the eggs, pumpkin and water. (If you use an electric mixer, keep it at low speed so the eggs won't be overbeaten.)

Stir the flour with the baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices. Stir into the pumpkin mixture. Stir in the nuts and raisins. Spoon the batter into the prepared pans and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean, about 1 hour. Let the breads cool in pans on wire racks for 5 minutes, then turn out on racks to cool completely.

Each loaf makes 10 to 12 slices. Serve the bread plain, with cream cheese, or with lemon or lime curd. Watch this blog for a lime curd recipe soon. It's a great way to use more of Nellie & Joe's Key Lime Juice that you might have left from making the Key Lime Pie I included earlier on the blog.

Feeling Sick Isn't Fun Anymore

When I worked for a living, being able to take off a day because I had a headache or cramps made the day -- and whatever illness -- better. No getting dressed up. No commute. No dealing with editors. Just sitting (or lying) on the couch and reading a good mystery.

The first 20 or so years I was employed at the newspaper, a company nurse would come to the house of any employee who called in sick. The boss called the nurse who then drove to the employee's house where she said her job was to see if she could provide any assistance to the sick one. Sure it was. She carried nothing more than a thermometer and aspirins. Her job -- and we all knew it -- was to check up on us. Were we really at home? Were we really ill? How ill? Could we return to work the next day?

The company also employed a doctor. If we became ill at work, we were to go see him. He could diagnose, give us a few pills, and most of the time we could resume working. It was all about keeping the employees at work so the newspaper could be printed and delivered.

Eventually, the doctor and his office disappeared. The nurse remained for a time until she and the manager of the cafeteria were caught taking hams and turkeys, bought with company money, to their cars after work. A fitting end for the company nurse, who made her living primarily by ratting out her co-workers.

These days, I'm retired from that company. When I'm sick, there's nothing good about it. No calling a number, then settling back with the knowledge that I'm getting paid for doing nothing. No being happy that my co-workers had to work and I didn't. The past 10 days or so, I've been dealing with an illness that, for now, is undiagnosed. Why is that? For various reasons, I suppose. Mostly, it's because I don't want to enter the medical system. Without knowing what I have, there would be one test after another. Frankly, I just don't feel like dealing with all of it.

Meanwhile, I have some good mysteries at hand, iced tea ready to pour, plenty of OJ and soup, and ginger capsules when I feel a bit out of whack. What's missing is the elation I used to feel when I knew I didn't have to go into work. Retirement is great. However, there are things that it lacks, things that only those who enjoyed being sick on a work day can understand.