Pumpkin Bread

It's the season for pumpkins!
I always thought that pumpkins were for decoration and carving. But apparently, they are for eating as well. So far, we've received 3 pumpkins from our CSA this year. They look just like a halloween pumpkins, so at first, I just left it on our patio for decoration. Then, my neighbor told us that it's actually for eating and told me how simple it is to turn it to edible form. So here's what I did with the first pumpkin.

I cut the pumpkin in half and roasted it cut side down on a baking pan with 1/4" of water at 350F. After an hour, the pumpkin came out cooked and squishy.


Then I scraped the inside of the pumpkin out into a bowl. I also took out the seeds, took out all the pumpkin bits around them and washed the seeds. The Only thing left after that was just the skin which looked like a deflated basketball.

Here's the pumpkin meat, the leftover skin and the seeds. After cleaning the seeds, I pat them dry and laid them out flat on a baking sheet with oil and a generous sprinkle of salt. I roasted them in 400F oven for 20min for some edible pumpkin seeds. Terran thought they reminded him of popcorn. You can eat the shell and all. The pumpkin was pureed, and put in the freezer for future use.

I gotta say, the pumpkin actually doesn't have that much flavor. It has less flavor than a butternut squash for sure. It's pretty bland.
So over the weekend, I made:

Pumpkin bread with chocolate chips:
(makes 2 loaves)
2 cups pumpkin puree
1 cup oil
4 large eggs
1/2 cup water
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
2/3 tsp ground cloves

3 cups white wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
2tsp baking soda

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven 350F. In a bowl, mix pumpkin, oil, egg, water, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Sift flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda over the mixture. Mix everything then mix in chocolate chips. Butter the 2 bread pans very well and pour in the mixture evenly. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes.

The bread came out wonderfully moist. The chocolate added a nice sweetness but it sort of camouflaged the pumpkin taste, but I didn't mind too much. I love chocolate! I thought the spice was subtle and just the right amount - it wasn't as spicy as store bought pumpkin bread or pie. It turned out great! We ate a loaf and brought another loaf to our new friend's house. Pat asked me to make more, so him and the kids can have them for breakfast again. Yum!