Italian Bread

Italian Bread Recipe

Ingredients:

1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 tablespoons crisco or tenderflake
1 1/4 cups warm water
2 1/2 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons salt

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions:

1 Mix together shortening, sugar, salt, yeast, and 1 cup flour. Add warm water and beat by hand until manageable, or 3 minutes with an electric mixer. Add remaining flour, scraping bowl often, and mix all together until smooth.
2 Cover with a clean cloth and let rise until doubled in volume.
3 Stir dough down gently, and spoon into a lightly greased 9x5 inch loaf pan (the batter should be sticky). Pat down with floured hands to help shape. Cover again, and let rise for about 30 minutes.
4 Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
5 Bake for about 45 minutes. Place on a cooling rack, and brush top with melted butter.

There is no such thing as too much Pumpkin!

If you are looking at your pumpkin thinking; 'this thing is huge and now what do I do to it to make pumpkin puree'  Go to this blog post on Simple Bites.  It is a great tutorial on how to make the puree from scratch.

Now once you have it what can you do with it?

Well, let me give you some ideas I have done in the past.

Pumpkin Spiced Hot Chocolate (Kitchen Simplicity)
Pumpkin Spice Smoothie (Healthful Pursuit)
Pumpkin Biscotti (Dessert for Two)
Pumpkin Shortbread Cookies (Dessert for Two)
Stir it in to Oatmeal with Cinnamon and brown sugar.
Chicken Enchiladas with Pumpkin Cream Sauce (Cheeky Kitchen)
Pumpkin Pancakes (Pennies on a Platter)

And now a couple recipes that are from me :)

Cindy's Pumpkin Supper

Feeds a crowd but you can cut it down to what you need (you will just have a whole lot of pumpkin to use)

1 pumpkin, cleaned of guts, peeled and chunked up
3 lbs ground beef
2 eggs
3 onions, roughly chopped
3 26 oz Cans Diced Tomatoes ( or equivalant)
6 TBSP Cumin
1 TBSP Sea Salt
1/2 TBSP ground pepper
3 cups grated cheddar

Meatballs:
Mix together Meat, eggs and 4 TBSP (YES TBSP's) Cumin and form in to meatballs. Brown.

In a very large Roaster, put 1/2 the pumpkin and sprinkle with 1 TBSP cumin. Salt and pepper
Then onions and the rest of the pumpkin and cumin, salt, and pepper
Bake at 300F for 3 hours.
Then add Meatballs, and Dump tomatoes on top and season again.

Finish with cheese and put in oven until pumpkin is cooked and meat is cooked through. about 1 hour.

Serve with rice and a salad!

Pumpkin Bread










INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups (210g) flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup (200 g) sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (1/4 L) pumpkin purée*
1/2 cup (1 dL) olive oil
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 cup (1 dL) chopped walnuts
* To make pumpkin purée, cut a pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff, lie face down on a foil or Silpat lined baking sheet. Bake at 350°F until soft, about 45 min to an hour. Cool, scoop out the flesh. Freeze whatever you don't use for future use. Or, if you are working with pumpkin pieces, roast or boil them until tender, then remove and discard the skin.
METHOD
1 Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Sift together the flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda.
2 Mix the pumpkin, oil, eggs, 1/4 cup of water, and spices together, then combine with the dry ingredients, but do not mix too thoroughly. Stir in the nuts.
3 Pour into a well-buttered 9x5x3 inch loaf pan. Bake 50-60 minutes until a thin skewer poked in the very center of the loaf comes out clean. Turn out of the pan and let cool on a rack.
Makes one loaf. Can easily double the recipe.

I'm Linking up here

If you have a favorite Pumpkin Recipe, I would love a link to it!