Time for November Recipe Swap!
The theme for this month was vegetarian recipes and I was assigned Alison's blog Sparks from the Kitchen.
I looked at a few different recipes before deciding on Velvet Pumpkin Bread (Eggplant Parmesan sounds awesome as well!). However, I have had a serious love for all things pumpkin the last few weeks and thought this particular bread sounded great. The original recipe was doubled, but I cut it in half so I wouldn't be able to eat it all in one sitting....it has been known to happen. I cut out some of the oil in the recipe by using 1/4 cup applesauce and 1/2 cup oil, but I think you could easily do 1/2 cup applesauce and 1/4 cup oil. I also added a bit of vanilla because I love the stuff. I made a few different pumpkin treats lately and this was Ron's favorite (Kellen is Switzerland with pumpkin- he loves it all). The bread was soooo moist and delicious it took all my willpower not to eat the entire loaf!
Life has been going well for us. Kellen struggled with a bout of pneumonia last week, but has been feeling great after a lot of tlc. Fall seems to be going by very quickly and I am feeling a growing sense of closure to the year. It amazes me how much has happened in 1 year. I had my first child and he will be 1 year old in a few short weeks. It is so profound to me....I have also been exclusively pumping for him and almost have reached my 1 year goal. I am working on a piece about our pumping adventure I hope to share with you all in December because our situation was a little different than most and , as I told Ron, it has been the most difficult thing I have ever done, but am thankful for the journey.
Thanks you to Alison for the great recipe and big thanks to Sarah of A Taste of Home Cooking for organizing the swaps!
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cups sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup canned pumpkin
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 and spray a 9″x5″ loaf pan with non-stick baking spray.
Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon and set aside. In a large bowl (I used my stand mixer) combine oil, applesauce, vanilla and sugar. Mix till smooth. Slowly mix in flour mixture. Add the eggs and pumpkin. Pour batter into the prepared pans and bake for 1 hour.
Makes 1 loaf.