Vegan Pumpkin Cranberry Bread

Today was one of those rare, wonderful days, where I was kid-free (the little guy was spending the day with his nana), and I had no reason to leave the house, no errands to run and nothing I had to get done. I found myself in a rather domestic mood, and all I felt like doing was cooking, baking, cleaning...and staying in my pjs all day. I can happily say I accomplished all of these things today.

For the baking, I was just about to make a sandwich bread I've been wanting to try when I decided to completely change gears. Not wanting to wait for yeast to rise and craving something a little on the sweet side, I began looking for a pumpkin quick bread. I found one that had great reviews, but while vegan, wasn't exactly healthy.

I played around, cleaning it up a little, and making changes like swapping out the shredded coconut for dried cranberries (majorly reducing the sugar, since the cranberries are plenty sweet). I also used extra pumpkin in place of some of the oil. The end result was a yummy, fall-flavored bread that you'd never guess was vegan. It was really moist and for our tastes, perfectly sweetened. Definitely a perfect treat for a perfect kind of day.

Vegan Pumpkin Cranberry Bread

adapted from allrecipes.com

makes 1 loaf

1 1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cinnamon

pinch of cloves

1 1/2 cup pumpkin puree

1/4 cup canola oil

1/3 cup coconut milk (or almond)

1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries

1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a loaf pan.

In a large bowl, combine flours, sugar, baking soda, salt and spices. In a smaller bowl, combine pumpkin, oil and milk. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones, and stir until incorporated. Fold in cranberries and walnuts.

Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and bake for an hour, or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Remove from oven, cover tightly with foil and allow to steam for 10 minutes. Remove foil and turn onto rack to cool completely.

Cranberry Almond Bread

I've had a bit of a bad attitude lately. I'm not sure if it's due to crazy hormones, the lack of wine in my life or the fact some days spent in the company of a two year old can be rough. Maybe it's a combination of all three. I try to be the sunshiney, "puppies and rainbows" variety of person, and I don't like being a grump (which by the way, is a much nicer word for how I've felt some days). To snap myself out of it, I decided to bake something wonderful that was a little indulgent and undeniably fall.

Inspired by the first fresh cranberries I've come across this year, I found just the recipe I was looking for at Good Things Catered- a cranberry nut bread flavored with orange and cinnamon. I tend to healthify my baked goods, cutting the sugar way back, using mostly wheat flour, subbing applesauce for oil, etc. but this time I stuck to the recipe. I didn't want to risk it being too dense or not sweet enough. The only real changes I made were slightly increasing the orange zest and using almonds instead of walnuts, because that was what I had.

Very easy to put together, this recipe results in a bread that is lightly sweet yet gloriously tart, perfect for breakfast, dessert or with your afternoon tea. (Tea that might not be quite as satisfying as a post kid-bedtime glass of red wine, but still nonetheless, very good.) Was this bread attitude adjusting? Definitely.

Cranberry Almond Bread, yields one loaf

adapted slightly from Good Things Catered's Simply Delicious Cranberry Nut Bread

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup oil

1/2 cup milk (I used 2%)

2 1/2 tbsp orange zest (from a medium sized navel orange)

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups plus 2 tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cup fresh cranberries

1/2 cup sliced almond pieces (or chopped walnuts)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease loaf pan

In a large bowl, add sugars and oil, and mix until well combined. Mixing while incorporating, add milk, eggs, zest and vanilla. Mix to combine well.

In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Fold dry ingredients into wet, until halfway combined. Fold in cranberries and nuts, until batter is just combined. Spoon into loaf pan, and tap to release air pockets.

Bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 50-55 minutes. (Mine took much longer, an hour and five minutes.) Remove from oven, and let cool in pan for 15 minutes. Turn loaf onto wire rack, and let cool completely before slicing. (Truthfully, I found this impossible, and cut and sampled mine while it was still slightly warm.)

Week 9: NE Patriots vs. Miami Dolphins- Cuban Sandwiches

If any one is actually paying attention, you may have noticed that last week I didn't have a Football related meal. It was a bye week for the Patriots, and originally I had planned on making a New England dish. Only, when it came down to it, we were having a lazy Sunday, after being up way too late on Halloween, and I decided I needed a bye week too.

This week was Miami, and we both instantly thought of Cuban Sandwiches. Interesting thing about Cubans- for me, it's rather similar to how people who hate thousand island, corned beef, sauerkraut and rye bread will somehow love a Reuben. I hate ham, am not much a fan of lunchmeats in general, and love a sandwich loaded with veggies. Yet I like Cubans.

Sage absolutely loves them and is the Cuban Sandwich maker in our house. This sandwich is made with Cuban bread, butter, yellow mustard, pickles, roast pork, ham and swiss. Just recently he got one somewhere and it also had salami on it. I have since discovered that only in the Tampa area will you ever find the addition of salami on a Cuban.

I'm going to be lazy and just link to a traditional Cuban-Miami recipe site, Three Guys from Miami, for how to make an authentic Cuban. Our only changes (other than a last minute subbing of spicy brown mustard when we discovered we were out of yellow) were to press ours on a George Foreman grill with a cast iron pan to weigh it down but this site gives direction on how to press it using a griddle pan.

Pumpkin Butter & Whole Wheat Oatmeal Quick Bread

Since I had a difficult time finding canned pumpkin for my pumpkin bread the other day, I thought I should save my remaining can for something special, just in case I couldn't find more. Then in the mail this week, I got three magazines, all with taunting Fall covers.

Better Homes & Gardens, the first one I read, was full of pumpkin recipes. For some reason their pumpkin butter recipe jumped out at me, despite there being far more exciting and complex ways to cook with pumpkin. When Living had hardly any edible ways to use it, my mind was made up, before I even could crack open Southern Living. Yet, when I went to make the BH&G's Pumpkin Butter, I realized we didn't have two key ingredients- pure maple syrup and apple juice. (I know, what kind of mommy doesn't have apple juice? The kind whose kid is getting carrot juice and more water lately because he's been drinking too much apple juice, even though I swore I'd never be that mom.)

In searching, it seemed all pumpkin butters had apple juice. Then I found one with applesauce instead. Now, I'll confess, I've never had pumpkin butter that I can recall, so I can't say if it's as good as one made with apple juice, but if the reviews from RecipeZaar are any indication, its actually better! All we know is it is delicious. It's yummy on homemade bread for breakfast or with dinner, or eaten straight out of the jar. And it got a huge toddler thumbs up in my house. He may somehow like it even more than me!

I wanted to make a healthy, easy bread to go with it, and found a nice recipe on the same site. I liked how it had no white flour and my much loved oats. This simple yeast-less recipe produces a dense tasty bread, which can be made vegan by using soymilk and maple syrup. I think its best toasted after being sliced. And smothered in pumpkin butter, of course!

Pumpkin Butter, from RecipeZaar

1 (15 ounce) can organic pumpkin puree
1 cup natural applesauce
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger (I subbed nutmeg)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

In small sauce pan, combine pumpkin, applesauce, sugar, cinnamon and ginger or nutmeg. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, stirring often to prevent scorching, 45 min. Stir in lemon juice. Let cool, then spoon into tight-sealing container and refrigerate. Will keep in the refrigerator up to 2 weeks.

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Quick Bread, adapted from RecipeZaar

1 1/2 cups rolled or quick-cooking oats

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

3 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt

2 1/4 tablespoons honey or maple syrup (I used honey)

1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used applesauce)
1 1/2 cups skim milk or soymilk (I used 1%)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9x5x3-inch loaf tin.

Grind oats in a food processor or blender to form a meal/flour. (I only did this with 3/4 a cup and left the rest whole.) In a large bowl, combine oatmeal, whole-wheat flour, baking powder and salt.

In a separate bowl, vigorously whisk together honey and vegetable oil (or applesauce) to form an emulsion; then stir in the milk and mix well until dissolved.

Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well to form a wet batter. Pour/spoon batter into prepared loaf tin and bake in preheated oven for about 50 minutes or until the top starts to brown slightly. Remove from loaf tin, cool completely on a wire rack.

White Chocolate and Cranberry Pumpkin Bread

Happy First Day of Fall! My favorite of all seasons, even if the Florida version of it isn't quite what the rest of the country experiences. To celebrate, I decided to make mini pumpkin bread loaves to deliver to a few friends.

Last Christmas, one of the girls from my message board, Shawna, shared a chocolate chip pumpkin bread recipe. I hadn't baked in forever, but she promised it was easy, so I made them as gifts for our neighbors and family members, in little Holiday ceramic loaf pans, tied with Christmas greens and red berries.

This time, I experimented and used white chocolate chips and dried sweetened cranberries. I tinkered with other aspects, such as the addition of wheat flour, reducing the sugar and subbing a good part of the oil for applesauce.They came out wonderful! I especially love the cranberry in it! The white chocolate seems a little lost, though. Since you can't really taste it, I'm not sure if it should just be omitted or more used.

I've heard about a pumpkin shortage, but assumed it was more of myth, however the first two stores (Publix and Sweetbay) didn't have it, so I went to my favorite little natural food market and they did. I probably paid twice as much for a tiny can of organic pumpkin than one double the size at a grocery store, but I found it! I was lazy about driving across town to Michaels for the ceramic loaf pans and just made them in throw-aways, so I tried to dress them up with dried leaves and berries and chocolate ribbon and cardstock.

adapted from Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread, Berger's Bites

Makes 5 mini loaves

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup lite brown sugar

1 (15 oz) can or 2 cups canned pumpkin puree

3/4 cup natural applesauce

1/2 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

1 cup white chocolate chips

1/2 cup Craisins

Preheat oven to 350° Grease mini loaf pans.

Combine dry ingredients in one bowl. In another bowl, beat eggs, sugars, pumpkin and oil. Stir into dry ingredients until moistened. Then add chocolate chips and dried cranberry.

Pour into pans. Bake for about 45 minutes or until tester inserted in center comes out clean.

The finished product, all ready to be delivered.

Sweet Potato Bread

The name of this delicious bread could be "Faux Pumpkin Bread" because that's what it tastes like. Yesterday was a rainy, blah kind of day and I was in the mood to bake. Since I had one lonely sweet potato, the idea came to me for Sweet Potato Bread. It has a wonderful fall flavor to it and smelled heavenly while baking!

On allrecipes.com I found a recipe to use as a base, although I can't just leave a recipe alone- ever- so I read through the reviews and basically took a little of this, a little of that. I switched out the flours from all purpose and reduced and changed the sugar (its still plenty sweet!) I also tossed in a cinnamon stick while boiling the sweet potato. This would also be a wonderful recipe to really use pumpkin in but since I almost always have sweet potatoes and not very often have canned pumpkin, I can now have the taste of pumkpin bread any time!

3/4 cup packed organic brown sugar
2 tbsp honey
1/2 cup vegetable oil (do not sub entire amount for applesauce)
2 eggs
1 cup bread flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/3 cup water

1 cup cooked mashed sweet potato (I boiled mine with a cinnamon stick)
1/2 cup chopped peacans (optional- I omitted, didn't have)

1.Combine sugar, honey and oil; beat well using a mixer. Add eggs and beat.
2. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir flour mixture into egg mixture alternately with water. Stir in sweet potatoes and chopped nuts if using.

3. Pour batter into greased 9x5 inch loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about one hour or until tester inserted in middle comes out clean.

Look who wanted to help out. The loaf was actually already in the oven at this point, but he did a fantastic job at stirring the imaginary contents of the bowl! So now I have the image of us side by side baking cookies and treats for every holiday. I've turned into such a mommy!

Blueberry Zucchini Bread

With my soup (below) on the stove, simmering, and my child taking a very late nap, I needed something else to be doing other than the mopping I was avoiding. I had zucchini in the crisper, and suddenly I thought making bread. I found a fairly healthy recipe on allrecipes.com. I wanted to make it even healthier, so I used mostly applesauce instead all of the oil it called for (a cup!), reduced the amount of brown sugar, and used more wheat flour and less all-purpose.

While I was in the middle of making it, I spotted a pint of blueberries when reaching for the applesauce. Somehow it seemed a shame to not include blueberries while baking at this time of year. So, after a moment of consideration, I threw caution to the wind and subbed the raisins I was going to use for blueberries. Then as it was in the oven, I was positive I'd ruined it. Luckily, this wasn't the case. It's a great combination! This yummy bread is moist and lightly sweet, perfect for breakfast, a snack or dessert.

I'd like to note: I personally thought 3 tablespoons of cinnamon seemed extremely excessive, yet I went for it. As it was baking all I smelled was cinnamon, and I feared it would be overpowering. It isn't. In fact, it doesn't stand out at all, so I wouldn't reduce it.

makes 1 loaf, adapted from Zucchini Bread III, allrecipes.com

3 eggs

3/4 cup of unsweetened applesauce

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 cups shredded zucchini

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1/4 cup quick cooking oats

1/4 tsp baking powder

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

3 tsp cinnamon

1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

1 cup blueberries, partially mashed (or raisins)

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. In a large bowl, combine eggs, applesauce, oil, sugar, zucchini and vanilla. Mix well.

3. Add flours, baking powder and soda, salt, cinnamon and oats to bowl. Combine. Stir in blueberries and walnuts. Pour into loaf pan.

4. Bake for about an hour or until tester inserted in middle comes out clean.