Pumpkins!

I'm not a fan of pumpkin pie...perhaps it's because I never had it made with REAL pumpkin. You know...those orange things that grow in the field?

In all fairness, the ingredient list on the cans of solid-pack pumpkin is very simple: contains pumpkin. Fair enough. Still, there's a taste and textural difference when making a pie or loaf of bread from pumpkin you processed yourself.

After you learn how to process pie pumpkins over at Suite 101, try this awesome Orange-Cream Filled Pumpkin Bread! I love quick breads - even though the name is kind of an oxymoron, because they take longer to bake than yeast breads. I make hundreds of loaves of quick breads throughout the year, and I still test every single one of them with a cake tester. Find one - they're a cheap item and the hole much less noticeable than if you use a toothpick.

Filling:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 egg
1 teaspoon dried orange peel

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

In a medium bowl using an electric mixer, combine the filling ingredients until smooth and creamy. Set aside.

Bread:
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional, but boy do they taste good!)

Into a medium bowl, sift together the flour, soda, salt, and spices. Set aside. In a large mixing bowl, combine the pumpkin puree, oil, eggs and sugar until well mixed. Add the dry ingredients to the puree mixture, folding together just until moistened. Gently fold in walnuts.

Prepare two 9 x 5 loaf pans with pan spray containing flour. Pour 1/4 of the batter into each pan. Top the batter in each pan with 1/2 of the cream cheese mixture. Evenly divide the remaining batter to top the cream cheese in each pan.

Bake at 325 degrees 45-60 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean (a few crumbs are OK, but not wet.

Allow breads to cool in pans for 10 minutes - this is very important. Otherwise, the bread will stick. Remove the bread from the pans and allow to cool completely on a rack. Well, if you can possibly resist eating warm bread.

Not Every Convenience Item is Bad for You

As much as it pains me to admit, there are some commercially packaged convenience items that are actually good for you. SunWest Organic Basmati Medley Rice Pilaf Blend, available at Costco in a 48 ounce container, is one of those items. A blend of basmati rice, wild rice and vegetables, this product has no added salt and provides 1 gram of fat and 4 grams of protein per serving.

As a recipe base, I can't say enough good things about SunWest Organic Basmati Medley Rice Pilaf blend. The variety of vegetables is broad, but is in great proportion to the rices in the mix.

I have made the SunWest Organic Basmati Medley Rice Pilaf as a side dish, simply following the package directions, using water instead of broth or stock. By itself, we found the blend to be very bland - we like our food to be bold!

Originally intended as a side dish for pan-fried catfish, I went overboard in creating Spicy Sausage Pilaf - it turned into a main dish and I saved the catfish for the next day.

Check out my recipe for Spicy Sausage Pilaf over at Suite 101.

It's more than money...

I love to cook. I'm not always successful - we've had a few goat-feeders over the years. I'm lucky in that my soul-mate enjoys my cooking AND cooking with me.

There was a time in my life that I made absolutely everything in my kitchen from scratch - all sauces, pastas, breads. I even made mayonnaise and butter just to prove I could. Over the years, I became a single mother employed outside of the home and the time constraints led to convenience food purchases. It was just easier to buy take-out or prepackaged foods at the store.

I missed cooking, though. I looked forward to the weekends with no "real" plans, when I could enter the kitchen on Saturday morning and finish stocking the cupboards and freezer on Sunday evening. Even after my kids were grown and out on their own, I enjoyed taking a day to stock their freezers.

I traveled extensively for several years and was living alone. I found no joy in cooking for myself and it was simpler to buy a supposed “healthy” frozen dinner and other convenience items.

Now, I am working from home again, with more time to cook. However, I keep searching for ways to speed up my time in the kitchen. I don’t want to use packaged items, and we rarely eat out. We just know that it doesn’t take long to fix dinner; it tastes better when we do it ourselves and it is less expensive. We actually eat items that are better for us by cooking simply.

I’m not advocating abolishing all prepackaged convenience items. I like cooked vegetables, my boyfriend despises them. I would be lost without packages of frozen vegetables to dispense just enough for myself. As “bad” as I know it is for me, I get a monstrous craving occasionally for grilled cheese and tomato soup. The soup must be Campbell’s and the cheese? Yes, I know pasteurized process cheese food isn’t really cheese, but I like the taste!

I hope to give people a realistic idea of the cost savings between homemade and fast food. The benefits are so much more than financial, though. Real food, without unpronounceable ingredients, is simply better for you in the long run.