Pumpkin Spice Bread with Brown Butter Glaze Sometimes a can is all you have

Ive noticed an alarming trend in my grocery shopping:  I avoid going to the grocery store if I have to take anyone from my family there..

I do not enjoy group outings to the grocery store.  I do not like taking Husband with me (as hell buy something I dont approve of) and I do not enjoy very much, three chattering, active, no-longer-sit-in-the-cart-and-look-cute children, who ask and explore and get excited over things that I cannot imagine.

"Mom, did you know that Jello comes in this bright green color?  How do they do that?"

"Mom, can I buy this [points to most sugary cereal with 27 different artificial colors listed] and eat it for all three meals today?

"Mom, lets walk down this [chips] aisle.  I wanna see all the stuff here.  It looks really yummy here."

"Mom, lemonade comes in a BOTTLE.  Like already made!  How do they do that?"

"Mom, look at these applesauces.  It has only apples listed in the ingredients.  Can we get it?"

"Mom, we need more snacks.  There is nothing I like to eat at home.  THIS SNACK is allergy safe!!"

"Mom.  They have FROZEN pizza.  Now you dont have to make it homemade.  Lets get one."

The mass of craziness, questions, activity, and general flurry of three kids running circles around me generally means that I will avoid going to the grocery store by all means, especially when the kids are on break, and right now, my kids are on break.  They are on a three-week fall break, and I made the mistake taking them to the store once, and I subsequently vowed to myself that wed have to be starving in order for me to go again.

Therefore I began rummaging through the pantry to find new things to cook without going anywhere to get ingredients, and I discovered 6 CANS of pumpkin.  Although the weather was hot, suddenly I felt fall.  I wanted to make something warmly spiced, rich, and typically autumn.  I toyed around with all six cans of pumpkin, making various permutations of this spiced bread, until I came upon the recipe that truly satisfied me.  One major requirement was that I had to USE UP a can of pumpkin instead of having one of those "I have 1/4 cup of pumpkin left that I dont know what to do with" situations.  The other major requirement was that I wasnt going to go to the supermarket to get any missing spices or ingredients.  The result was this super delicious bread that everyone who has tasted has been going nuts over.

(In a funny side story, I knew I wanted cinnamon, but could only find cinnamon sticks. In order to avoid the store, I cleaned out my coffee grinder and ground my own cinnamon, sifted it to make sure it was fine, and drank cinnamon perfumed coffee for a few days, only to find my ground cinnamon 3 batches of pumpkin bread later.)

Lucky for you, this recipe makes TWO loaves - one to give away, and one to keep. Or, if youre selfish, one to freeze and one to keep.  Or, if you have a ravenous family who needs to keep busy eating pumpkin bread, one to eat and another to eat.  The icing is optional - and as my #2 likes to say, "When it has icing, its dessert.  When it doesnt have icing, its breakfast."

Pumpkin Spice Bread with Brown Butter Glaze
Makes 2 loaves

Bread Ingredients
2 ?  cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 16-ounce can solid pack pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½  teaspoon baking powder
½  teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
½  teaspoon ground cloves
½  teaspoon ground nutmeg

Glaze Ingredients
1 stick (8 tablespoons butter)
2 cups confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 to 5 tablespoons whole milk (will vary based on desired consistency)

Bread Method
Preheat oven to 350.  Grease two 9X5X3 loaf pans (or a slightly smaller one, but just know it’ll take longer to bake, the deeper the pan).  Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, oil, eggs, and pumpkin.  Set aside.  In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.

Gently add flour to pumpkin-egg mixture.  Mix slowly and gently, incorporating gently, being careful not to overbeat.  Once mixture is well incorporated, divide evenly between two loaf pans.

Bake for 65 to 75 minutes.  Bake until tester in the center of loaf comes out clean.  Allow breads to cool for 10 minutes, and then turn out onto racks to cool completely.

Glaze Method
In a heavy saucepan, melt butter over medium high heat, until golden brown, about 8-10 minutes.  Carefully pour melted butter into a bowl, leaving excess sediment behind.

Add confectioners sugar, vanilla extract and 3 tablespoons milk and whisk together until uniform and smooth.  If glaze is still too thick, add more milk and whisk again, until desired consistency.  A runny glaze is easier to smooth everywhere but doesn’t set up as easily as a slightly stiffer glaze.  Choose accordingly.

Use glaze immediately.  Pour over bread and allow to set, about 30 minutes.

Printable recipe

I can stay at home for this.  

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Lemon Yogurt Cake When you have a little fan

For my youngest fan, JK, I know that your dreams will come true!

I hear it every so often.  "I read your blog."  "I love your blog."  "I really love your stories."  Its not every day, but its often enough that I feel reasonably reassured that out there, in the wide, wide world, I have a few fans.  Its especially reassuring considering that no one in my home reads my blog or enjoys my food.  My daily cooking is often met with groans, words like "Not THAT again" and "Why dont we ever eat out?"  My fans out there in cyber space are what keep my kitchen running like an old engine in need of an oil change.

However, my official tune-up to becoming a well-oiled old engine, came in the form of a 7-year-old daughter of a friend.  This young lady dreams of being a TV chef.  Her days are filled with visions of becoming a Food Network star, and she daily practices her TV cooking show.  Shes organized, methodical and an expert baker.  The craziest thing of all is that she counts me as one of her cooking idols.  I have a series of 4 cooking videos on Grokker, and she watches them repeatedly, often imitating the way I say a line, or asking rhetorical questions to my face on the screen that she knows will be answered soon after.  She is, truly, my biggest fan.  She asks her mom to make the recipes that I make and she begs her mom to watch me on Grokker.  She pulls up recipes from my blog to study and when she comes over, I see her shyly glancing my way, almost like one would with a star in the house.  She repeatedly asks her mom HOW we met (high school over 20 years ago) and how we are still friends after all this time.

So for you, JK,  my young apprentice from afar, I give you this recipe of lemon cake.  You tasted it, loved it and I told you it was the perfect recipe for you to make this weekend.  Its easy - no mixer required and all you need to do is have two bowls at the ready so that you can mix a bowl of wet ingredients and a bowl of dry ingredients.  It just so happens that your mom also likes it, so soon you can be the expert at making this lemon cake as well.

Hugs to you my young chef.  I know your star will come!

Lemon Yogurt Cake
(adapted from Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa At Home)
Makes 1 loaf, enough for 8 people

Ingredients for Cake
1 ½  cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½  teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1 cup sugar
3 extra-large eggs
½  cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (2 to 3 lemons, and you’ll use the juice later)
½  teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Method
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 1/2 by 4 1/4 by 2 1/2-inch loaf pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper.

Whisk  together the flour, baking powder, and salt into 1 bowl. In another larger bowl, whisk together the yogurt, sugar, eggs, oil, lemon zest, and vanilla. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients,  making sure its all incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 50 minutes, or until a cake tester placed in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

While cake is baking, make soaking syrup.

Ingredients for Syrup
? cup granulated sugar
? cup lemon juice (from the lemons zested)

Method
Cook the 1/3 cup lemon juice and remaining 1/3 cup sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear. Set aside.

When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Carefully place on a baking rack over a sheet pan. While the cake is still warm, pour the lemon-sugar mixture over the cake and allow it to soak in. Cool.

Printable recipe

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OmieBox How to have your hot and cold food together!

The creator of the OmieBox and I met a few months back and I have to say that initially I was mostly skeptical before meeting her.  Could a lunch box do better than the system I had going now?  I had a way to deal with hot food, regular food, not hot food and it seemed to work pretty well.  I liked dividers, I liked the one box idea and I thought I had it pretty good the way I had things set up already.

When Nancy came to me and asked me to look at the box, immediately my thoughts shifted to Son, who has a number of food allergies which I think has contributed to his lack of curiosity when it comes to food.  He likes what he knows, doesnt really enjoy trying new things, and actually needs a HOT meal for most of his lunches.  These past few years havent been a problem because I feed him at home; however, come this school year, Son will be eating on his own, at school, and the challenges of feeding him loom large and clear in my head. Upon seeing the prototype for the OmieBox, I began imagining the flexibility of lunches I could pack for him - something hot (miso soup) with his rice rolls and his fruit.  He would be able to eat it easily and in the way that suited him and I became very interested in this idea.

After seeing the OmieBox, it stuck in my head because Daughters began complaining about the monotony of their lunches.  It was always "cold" and sometimes they wanted a hot lunch, but when I offered to pack the thermos with something, they complained that it made everything too bulky because they had to pack so much within.  I kept thinking about the OmieBox and how it would solve the problem and I could pack something warm with something cold in the SAME BOX.

Im excited to say that OmieBox is launching a kickstarter campaign in order to begin production of their boxes.  Im pretty sure that its going to sell out in the early stages (thats my gut instinct on this) so it will be to your benefit to join early and get one.  I think these boxes are a perfect solution to a lot of food and eating dilemmas out there, so please take a look at the kickstarter link and get ready to be a backer!

There is more information on the OmieBox, check out their website as well.

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Shredded Kale Avocado Salad Have you had enough kale yet

I know inwardly youre groaning.  AGAIN Joanne?  MORE KALE AGAIN?  Whats with the kale?

Every week, the farmers in my neighborhood comes by and I go and buy armloads of fresh Tuscan kale.  I bring it home and spend about an hour washing, drying and shredding the kale so that I can always have a kale salad, at the ready.  I love kale salad because they are hearty, hold up well, and taste great in a number of different permutations, and this avocado kale version is one inspired by a friend of mine who told me that Whole Foods makes a version that always gets picked over because people take all the avocados.

In your home version, however, you can just add so many avocados (or as many as youd like) so that NO ONE can pick out all of your avocados.  I love this version of kale salad for its brightness combined with the richness of the avocados.  You are satisfied after consuming it and probably your insides are happy to be so green with all of those great antioxidants.  Dont knock it until you try it (I know you there are kale haters out there) and a little bit of kale goes a long way in making you feel pretty darn great.

If you’ve never dealt with dinosaur/lacinato kale, you’ll need to remove the stem before trying to eat it.  I’ve found the fastest way is to simply grab the stem with one hand, and with the other, start at the base of the leaf, and it a quick motion, strip the leaf upwards until the stem is left stripped.  I save the stem and chop it finely and put it in my vegetable soups.   I find it much easier to wash the kale after the stem has been removed.  Wash, dry very well in a salad spinner, and then shred.  The smaller the shred, the better the texture in the salad.

Shredded Kale Avocado Salad
Serves 3 to 4

Ingredients
3 medium bunches Lacinato/dinosaur kale, washed and rinsed well, finely chopped (8 cups chopped)
2 or 3 large ripe avocados, cut into large chunks
3 large garlic cloves
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
¼  cup extra virgin olive oil
¼  teaspoon fine grain sea salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Method
In a food processor, or with a garlic press, create finely chopped garlic. Add lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, and whisk together.  (If you are using food processor for garlic, add lemon juice to the garlic in the processor and process.  Add olive oil, salt and pepper to processor and give a quick pulse.)

In a large salad bowl add shredded kale, and dress lightly with dressing.  Depending on the actual volume of kale you may need less dressing that what you’ve made.  Carefully coat all kale with the dressing then toss avocado chunks so that they are also coated with dressing.

Serve.  Because of the sturdy nature of kale, you can actually dress this salad and serve even 30 minutes later and it’s still delicious, although my preference is to eat it immediately.

Printable recipe

Keep all the avocados for yourself.

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