Tuesday, October 1, 2013

The Great Pumpkin (bread)




Dry Ingredients in a big mixing bowl:
1.5 cups of whole wheat flour
.5 cups of ground flaxseed
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Wet Ingredients in a small mixing bowl:
1 cup fresh pumpkin puree
1/4 cup coconut or canola oil
3 tablespoons honey

After combining wet into dry to form batter add:
1/2 cup toasted pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup crushed walnuts

I made the pumpkin puree by roasting 6 fist-sized pumpkin chunks in the oven at 400 for about 30 minutes - until tender with a fork.  Then I separated the pumpkin meat and rocked it in the Vitamix for about 15 seconds.  I used a fine wire mesh strainer to drain some of the water out of the puree.  Learn from my mistake:  Don't press the puree with any sort of pressure in the strainer or you'll lose most of it through the mesh.  Just stir it a bit and let it sit over the sink while you prepare the dry ingredients.

Messy Puree
Because I'm a Portion Control Warrior and knew I would be sharing this bread with my running girls, I used 3 mini loaf pans to control the size of the slices.  If you use the mini loaf approach bake at 325 for 35 minutes.  A regular loaf pan should be 350 for 40-45 minutes.  Either way, a toothpick should come out clean when tested.

Happy Pumpkin Loaves


Finally, I must include the following gratuitous photo for my Ks!  (I run with three women ALL named Kathy, all live the in the same housing community and three of their husbands work in the same office!  Weird.  And weirder still - there are actually 2 MORE Kathy's in the same neighborhood whose husbands ALSO work in the same office.  An office of only 7 people.   I swear, I need to give this information to a statistician to find out the ODDS on that.)

The K's are now referred to as K's 1 - 5 for ease in communications.  I run with K3, K4 and K5.  All K's and this L are psycho peanut butter lovers and have spent many running hours discussing our love of nut butters.  After I made the loaves above, I indulged in the following treat:

1 handful of left over roasted pumpkin seeds
The remaining pumpkin bread batter, squeegeed out of the bowl with rubber spatula
1 squeeze of honey
1 spoonful of natural chunky peanut butter

I mixed it all up in a coffee cup and then spread on whole wheat toast.  Then I died and went to heaven.  I had to exercise extreme self control to stop and take this picture.  It was a close call.  THIS is the kind of food that makes marathon training worth it!  Also good to note the beauty of a vegan kitchen... you can lick every spoon any stinkin' time you want!



I can still taste it...