The word pumpkin originates from the word pepon, which is Greek for “large melon”. The French adapted this word to pompon, which the British changed to pumpion and later American colonists changed that to the word we use today, “pumpkin”.
The color of pumpkins plus the the crisp Fall air reminds us of holidays, and the smell of freshly cooked pumpkin recipes.
This is a delicious delicious pumpkin bread recipe that I got from my grandmother when I was a young cook with my own family.
Note: I have substituted my own cooked pumpkin puree in this recipe for years and it gives it a wonderful fresh taste. I have used my left over jack-o-lantern by cooking it the day after I carved it, but it is even better when you use a sweet pie pumpkin. Pie pumpkins are smaller, sweeter, less grainy textured pumpkins than the usual jack-o-lantern types. See recipe to cook your own pumpkin.
INGREDIENTS
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil or 1/4 cup oil and 1/4 cup applesauce
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup solid-pack pumpkin
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon, ground
1 teaspoon nutmeg, ground
1/2 teaspoon clove, ground
1/4 teaspoon allspice, ground
1/2 cup water
1/2 nuts and or raisins
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 F. In a large bowl, combine sugar, oil and eggs. Add pumpkin and mix well. Combine dry ingredients; add to the pumpkin mixture alternately with water. Pour into greased 9-in. x 5-in. x 3-in. loaf pan. Bake at 350 F for 60-70 minutes or until bread tests done. Cool in pans 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack; cool completely.
For many years now, I have been growing zucchini & looking for other ways and means to make use of them aside from your usual dishes like salads and etc. So I have experimented a lot of times to get interesting dishes that feature zucchini as the main ingredient.
Here are 2 delicious bread recipes that star the zucchini as main ingredient and they’re absolutely delicious.
Moist Zucchini Quick Bread Recipes With Nuts & Spices
6 cups unbleached white flour, or a combination of half white, half whole wheat
2 tsps salt
2 tsps baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsps cinnamon, ground
6 large eggs
3.5 c sugar
5 tsps pure vanilla extract
1 3/4 c canola oil
5 c zucchini, finely grated
2 c walnuts/pecans, chopped
Preheat your oven to around 350 deg. F. Butter/spray with vegetable spray & flour 4 (8½ X 4½ X 2½ inch) loaf pans and set aside. Using a food processor, grate the zucchini until it is fine. Set aside. Inside a big bowl, mix flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon and set aside. Beat eggs in an another large bowl, preferably with a stand mixer, or a hand-held mixer. Next, add sugar, canola oil & vanilla then mix again until blended well. Scrape sides of bowl.
Add grated zucchini then mix, scraping down sides of bowl once or twice. Using a large rubber spatula, fold in your flour mixture until it is all combined and there are no dry ingredients left in the bottom of your bowl. Fold in the walnuts/pecans. Spread batter into the 4 prepared pans and bake at 350 deg. for 1 hour (60 minutes) or just until knife comes out clean. Allow cooling for 5-10 minutes and then gently removing them from the pans and let them cool completely on wire racks before wrapping and freezing. Serve at room temperature or chilled.
Refrigerate for up to 2 days or freeze for up to 3 months. Make 4 regular size zucchini breads. Delicious Blueberry Zucchini Bread 3 pcs eggs, lightly beaten 1 c vegetable oil 2 1/4 c white sugar 2 c zucchini; shredded 3 c flour (all-purpose) 1 tsp salt 3 tsps vanilla extract 1 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp baking soda 1 tbsp ground cinnamon 1 pint fresh blueberries Preheat your oven to around 350 deg. F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease 4 mini-loaf pans.
Inside a large bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, vanilla, & sugar. Fold in the zucchini. Beat in the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Gently fold in the blueberries. Transfer to the prepared mini-loaf pans. Next, bake 50 minutes in the preheated oven, or just until a knife inserted in the middle of a loaf comes out clean. Cool 20 minutes in pans, then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely.
If you regularly purchase several loaves of bread each week to your family, in addition to rolls, frozen pizzas and other bread products, the cost can quickly add up. However, if you learn to make your own bread, you can take a huge chunk out of your grocery bills – especially if you often purchase expensive “whole grain” products. Chances are, you’ll be amazed at how many different foods you can make with a single bread recipe.
Uses for Bread Recipes
If you love the taste of pizza, rolls, pitas, and bread, you might be surprised to know that you can make all of them with the same basic dough. For example, if you find a bread recipe that’s easy for you to work with, you can toss it into a pizza shell, in addition to shaping the dough into loaves. Or you may want to shape some of the bread into rolls, and then sprinkle them with sesame seeds before baking them. There are many ways to shape bread dough into different food bases, and at the same time, you’ll be saving an enormous amount of money on each item.
Budgeting Advantages
If you buy bread in the store, it’s likely to cost you over $2.00 per loaf, while frozen pizzas may cost three to five times as much. On the other hand, one five-pound bag of flour is more than enough to make two loaves of bread, plus three large pizzas, for only a few dollars a bag. All you’ll need to do from there is add your toppings. In many cases, you’ll find that whatever products you bake at home wind up being at least 50% cheaper than their pre-made, store-bought counterparts.
Finding Bread Recipes
If you have a basic cookbook at home, you may already have access to a good bread dough recipe, or you can find some excellent bread recipes online. As you browse the online listings, authors will detail whether you’re working with a soft dough or a stiffer one. You’ll also be able to read reviews left by other people that have tried these recipes. In some cases, you may even find suggestions for recipe changes, as well as tasty additions.
Baking Bread on a Schedule
Of course, few people have the time to bake bread on a daily basis, since the process may take a few hours. That said, if you can carve out a single five hour block of time in your weekly schedule, you should be able to bake enough bread, pizza and desserts for the rest of the week. If you enjoy cooking, you may even find that the soothing process of baking bread becomes the part of the week that you enjoy most.
Every time you buy bread – or any other food that is based on bread dough – it’s as if you’re throwing away half the money in your food budget. In many cases, if you can dedicate just a few hours a week to baking, you’ll have delicious, healthy bread products for your family to eat, since when you do your own cooking, you won’t be adding the preservatives or other harmful additives that commercial breads often contain. At the same time, you’ll save money over grocery store alternatives, allowing you to stretch your food budget even further.
Though the health benefits of whole grains are well known, plenty of people still can’t get over the taste.
Accustomed to the puffy softness of white breads, some people balk at the strong flavor and chewy texture that comes with whole grains, especially in whole-grain breads. There are easy ways around this.
First, try baking whole-grain bread at home, where you have more control over the consistency of the final product. Second, try a transitional recipe, one that blends whole-wheat and white flours.
Johnson & Wales University baking instructor Peter Reinhart has developed an innovative technique that makes it relatively simple to produce whole-grain breads with rich flavors and pleasant textures.
Reinhart uses a two-day method and creates two “pre-doughs” that separate the functions of flavor development and leavening. On the second day the two doughs are combined into a final dough, which then is formed into loaves and baked.
This technique gives you more flexibility. Traditional bread must rise several times, then be baked without delay. With Reinhart’s method, you can create the two pre-doughs, called the soaker and the starter, in little time, then hold them in the refrigerator for up to three days before combining them into a final dough for baking.
This recipe for Transitional Cinnamon Raisin Bread from Reinhart’s book, “Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads,” looks daunting but requires less than an hour of hands-on time.
The resulting bread is moist with a crisp crust and pleasant texture. Whole-grain skeptics and lovers will appreciate the comforting cinnamon flavor and the personal touch that goes into home baking.
Transitional Cinnamon
Raison Bread
For the soaker:
21/4 cups whole-wheat flour
5/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk, buttermilk, yogurt, soy milk or rice milk
11/3 cups raisins (optional)
For the starter:
21/4 cups unbleached bread flour
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
3/4 cup milk, buttermilk, yogurt, soy milk or rice milk, at room temperature
1 large egg, slightly beaten
For the final dough:
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons whole-wheat flour
5/8 teaspoon salt
21/4 teaspoons instant yeast
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup cinnamon sugar (3 tablespoons sugar mixed with 2 teaspoons cinnamon)
To make the soaker:
In a large bowl, combine flour, salt and milk. Mix for 1 minute, or until all the flour is hydrated and the ingredients form a ball of dough. If using the raisins, knead them into the dough.
Cover bowl loosely with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for 12 to 24 hours. If it will be more than 24 hours, refrigerate for up to 3 days. Remove it 2 hours before mixing.
To make the starter:
In a second large bowl, mix bread flour, yeast, milk and egg until they form a ball of dough. Knead the dough for 2 minutes in the bowl. The dough should feel very tacky.
Knead it for another minute. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 8 hours and up to 3 days.
About 2 hours before mixing the final dough, remove the starter from the refrigerator.
To make the final dough:
On a lightly floured counter, use a metal pastry scraper to chop soaker and starter into 12 smaller pieces each. Sprinkle pieces with flour to keep them from sticking together.
In the mixer bowl of a stand mixer, combine the dough pieces with flour, salt, yeast, honey, butter and cinnamon. Mix with the paddle attachment (preferable) or dough hook on slow for 1 minute to bring the ingredients together into a ball. Switch to dough hook and mix on medium-low, occasionally scraping down the bowl, until everything is well-combined, 2 to 3 minutes. Add more flour or water as needed until the dough is soft and slightly sticky.
Dust a work surface with flour, then roll dough in the flour to coat. Knead by hand, incorporating only as much extra flour as needed, until the dough feels soft and tacky, but not sticky, 3 to 4 minutes. Form into a ball and let it rest on the work surface for 5 minutes while you prepare a clean, lightly oiled bowl.
Resume kneading dough to strengthen the gluten and make any final water or flour adjustments, about 1 minute. The dough should have strength, yet feel soft and supple, and very tacky. Form the dough into a ball. Place in prepared bowl, rolling to coat with oil. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let dough rise at room temperature until it is about 11/2 times its original size, about 45 to 60 minutes.
When dough has risen, lightly coat 2 standard loaf pans with cooking spray.
Dust work surface with 1 tablespoon flour and gently transfer dough to work surface with a plastic bowl scraper (try not to rip or tear the dough).
Divide dough in half, then roll each piece into an 8-inch square about 1/2-inch thick. Sprinkle each square with some of the cinnamon sugar. Tightly roll up each square. Place loaves into pans.
Mist tops of loaves with cooking spray, then cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until the loaves crest above the pans, about 1 hour.
Meanwhile, heat oven to 400 degrees. Place pans on middle rack of oven, lower temperature to 325 degrees, and bake for 20 minutes. Rotate pan 180 degrees and continue baking, until the loaves are a rich brown on all sides, sound hollow when thumped on the bottom, and register at least 195 degrees at the center, another 25 to 40 minutes.
Transfer loaves to a cooling rack and allow to cool for at least 1 hour before serving. Makes 2 loaves.
When immigrants from the four corners of Europe came to America, they brought a variety of traditional Easter bread recipes. Now chocolate Easter bunnies, yellow marshmallow chicks and jelly beans signify the holiday but at one time families served Easter breads, which are rich in symbolism and history.
Father Dominic Garramone, a Catholic priest, cookbook author and host of the TV show “Breaking Bread with Father Dominic,” would like to ensure that Easter bread traditions are not forgotten. “Bread for Easter is one way of bringing some tradition and meaning back to the holiday,” he says. Here are two of his tried-and-true brunch recipes:
French Toast
Custard Casseroles
For each casserole, you will need:
1 egg
2 Tbs. whole or reduced-fat milk
2 thick or 3 medium slices of day-old bread (store- bought bread works well)
2 Tbs. chopped pecans
1/3 cup maple-flavored syrup
1 Tbs. butter
1 small ovenproof bowl, about 5″ across and 2″ deep (a small soup bowl with a handle works well.)
Preheat oven to 350° F. Lightly coat the interior of the ovenproof bowl with cooking spray or butter. Trim bread slices to a shape and size that will fit the bowl. In another larger bowl, whisk egg and milk, then place bread slices in egg mixture until liquid is absorbed. Combine nuts and syrup in the bottom of the ovenproof bowl, and dot the surface with the butter.
Place the soaked bread slices on top-they should not reach past the lip of the bowl. Place bowl on a baking sheet to prevent drips, and place in the preheated oven. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until top is lightly browned and center is firm. Remove from oven and allow to set for about 10 minutes. Invert bowl onto a plate, remove bowl and serve.
Ham and Cheese Braid
1 pkg. active dry yeast
11/4 cups warm milk (100° to 110° F)
1 Tbs. sugar
1 Tbs. vegetable oil
11/2 tsp. salt
1 egg
3 to 31/2 cups all-purpose flour
11/2 cups ham, coarsely chopped
11/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)
1 egg white, beaten with 1 Tbs. water
Put warm milk into a medium-size bowl. Add yeast, stir to dissolve. Add sugar, egg, salt and oil. Add 3 cups of flour and beat well. Work in enough of remaining flour to form a soft dough. Knead for 6 to 8 minutes. Rinse and dry the bowl, then oil the surface of the dough and place in the bowl. Cover with a clean, dry dish towel, and let rise in a warm place free from drafts for about one hour, or until doubled in volume.
Mix ham, cheese, and nuts (if desired) in medium-size bowl. Roll out dough 10″ x 18″. Spread filling lengthwise in the center third of the dough; press filling together slightly. Using a sharp knife, cut each outer third of the dough (the part not covered by filling) into 5 to 7 diagonal strips, cutting from the edge of the dough to about 1″ from the edge of the filling. Brush the strips lightly with water. Fold the dough strips over the filling, alternating left and right, being careful not to stretch the dough. Tuck in the ends of the last strips to seal. Carefully transfer loaf to a lightly greased nonstick 9″ x 13″ cake pan. Cover and let rise in a warm, draft-free place for 30 minutes, or until doubled in size. Brush the surface of the dough with the egg white wash. Bake at 400° in a preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the temperature of the filling is about 160°.