Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread

Are you seeing a pumpkin theme? Using up some stuff from the freezer.

I thought that it would be nice to make some baked goods this weekend. Spouse and offspring made some cookies, and I got to thinking of pumpkin cream cheese bread. Which I've never made before.

So Google was such a help, and it popped up this almost 5-star recipe from allrecipes.com.

I am usually a bit horrified by quick bread recipes that I find on the internet or in most cookbooks such as Betty Crocker. This was no exception. If you look at the list of ingredients (which makes 2 loaves), it calls for 1 2/3 cup of flour and TWO FULL CUPS of sugar. More sugar than flour. That comes out to about 1 Tablespoon of sugar per SLICE (and these are small slices). I certainly don't think this falls into the healthy category of this blog.

So I pretty liberally adjusted the recipe like I normally do with quick breads. I cut the sugar down to about 1/2 cup plus two tablespoons (that's 10 tablespoons instead of 32!!). I also subbed some of the white flour for whole wheat. I often will decrease the oil and sub applesauce or more pumpkin. Didn't do that this time.

It was still quite tasty. But I took the bread out of the oven and took a nap. It fell a little, maybe because I left it in the pan too long.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread:

filling:
beat in a medium bowl:
1 8-oz package light cream cheese, softened: $1.25
2 Tbsp white sugar: 0.03
1 Tbsp flour: 0.01
1 egg: $0.13
1 Tbsp tangerine and/or orange zest (from our trees, I used a mixture): $0

dry ingredients:
mix in a medium bowl:
1 2/3 cup flour (I used a mix of white and wheat)
1 tsp baking soda: 0.02
1/2 tsp salt: 0.01
1/2 tsp cinnamon: 0.03
1/2 tsp cloves: 0.05
1/4 tsp nutmeg: 0.05
1/4 tsp ginger: 0.05

Wet ingredients:
Beat in a large bowl:
1 cup pumpkin puree: 0.50
1/2 cup canola oil: 0.28
2 eggs: 0.25
1/2 cup white sugar: 0.09

Total: $3.10 for two loaves of about 16 slices each, or about $0.10 per slice. Three slices with some fruit makes a good breakfast.

Preheat oven to 325.

Grease two small loaf pans.

Add wet ingredients to dry and stir until just mixed.

Pour about half of the batter into the bottom of two pans and spread flat. Spoon the cream cheese mixture on top and spread a bit. Top with remaining batter.

Bake for 60 min, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Pumpkin Soup and the garden

So, I have a favorite Butternut Squash Soup recipe, as you well know if you've been reading this blog.

But what about pumpkin? I got a large pumpkin this year from the CSA. And it generated 7 cups of puree. Which I froze. I always seem to find pumpkin soup recipes this time of year. But when I want to find them? Can't.

So this recipe started with a recipe from SavingDinner.com. (I am on the mailing list...it's free!) It's made additionally awesome because I can use up some curry powder and pick some green onions from the garden. Which I planted myself. In April. Yeah, they were slow growers. We're about ready to rip out the rest of the 3x9 feet garden. (Two squares of 3x3). Except we have that stupid cherry tomato plant, planted from a single seed, that is still producing.

What I learned from this first mini garden:

Successes:

chard (the gift that keeps on giving)

parsley

tomatoes

cherry tomatoes

cucumbers (a little bit)

onions (eventually)

Dismal failures

eggplant

cantaloupe

cilantro

chives

Okay growers:

beets

radishes

Anyway, back to the recipe. When I googled the recipe to see if it was "out there" and printable, I realized that it comes from her book. And a couple of reviews on the book found it too mild. I then thought about one of my favorite blogs (fatfreevegan.com) for recipes and found HER recipe. And thus, combined the two. I'm not a big fan of creamy soups anyway (on occasion they are okay, but it's the recipes that call for 2 cups of heavy cream that kind of freak me out.)

Pumpkin soup:

3 cups roasted pumpkin: 1.50

4 cups chicken stock: free (homemade from the Thanksgiving chicken)

1 medium onion: 0.20

1 T. olive oil: 0.11

four green onions, sliced: free

1/3 cup orange juice: 0.09

3 cloves garlic, roasted: 0.15

3/4 tsp curry powder: 0.10

pinch nutmeg

salt and pepper to taste

Total: $2.15 for about 8 cups, or $0.27 per cup

This was actually quite tasty and curry-licious. I think it would still be good with a little bit of milk or cream.

Pumpkins!

This is the first year since we joined our CSA - oh, 8 years ago or so - that we've gotten more than one pumpkin. Last week I chose a carving pumpkin. I chose it pretty poorly, darned thing won't stand up - so we'll have to carve it to look like it's been knocked over somehow.

This week we got another pumpkin. I walked into the field to choose (that's just so much fun), and got into a conversation with a 7-or-8 year old girl on the virtues of an "eating" pumpkin vs. a carving pumpkin. She chose to pick up a very large sugar pumpkin (one that I decided was too big). I selected a slightly smaller sugar pumpkin.

Then on Friday night I roasted it. First, I microwaved it to soften the skin (3 min on high). That's a tip I learned here on the internet. Then, I sliced it in half crosswise, scooped out the seed (1.5 cups!) and placed the halves face down in two baking sheets (with lips) - lined with foil. I added a little water. Then I roasted it for 1.5 hours at 375. I flipped over the halves so they would cool, scooped out the flesh, and put it in the fridge.

I got a fair bit of water, a couple of cups. I suppose I could have saved it for soup, but I just dumped it. I also got about 5.5 cups of pumpkin. I roasted the seeds.

Saturday morning I baked Pumpkin Apple Muffins, & packed up the rest of the puree into the freezer. I had planned on giving a bag to our friends with the 6-month old baby, but forgot (perfect baby food!) Maybe we'll drop some off in the coming weeks.

Pumpkin Apple Streusel Muffins:
1.5 c. all purpose flour: 0.28
1 c. whole wheat flour: 0.22
1/2 c. sugar: 0.19
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten: 0.42
1.5 tsp cinnamon: 0.25
0.5 tsp ground ginger: 0.05
1/4 tsp nutmeg: 0.05
1/4 tsp ground cloves: 0.05

1 cup organic pumpkin puree: 1.00
1/2 c. vegetable oil: 0.25
2 cups chopped apple (organic): 1.33
1/2 c. raisins: 0.22

Streusel:
2 T. flour: 0.02
2 T sugar: 0.05
1/2 tsp cinnamon: 0.08
4 tsp butter: 0.08

Total: $4.54 for 20 muffins, or $0.23 each

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease 18-20 muffin cups.

2. In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, spices, baking soda, and salt. In separate bowl, mix together eggs, pumpkin, and oil.

3. Add pumpkin mixture to dry ingredients. Stir just to moisten. Fold in apples and raisins. Spoon into muffin cups.

4. Mix streusel topping in a small bowl. Sprinkle over muffins.

5. Bake for 35 min, or until toothpick comes out clean.