pumpkin-bread_brownies-ready-to-eat

This is about getting inspired by the cans in your pantry closet. I am an enormous fan of pumpkin. I am not sure if that is why my favorite season is autumn, or because pumpkin is so synonymous with my favorite season, I love it so much. Or maybe it is its deep orange color (which happens to be my favorite color). I think what I love most about it, is that it is still a “Seasonal Vegetable”. People generally eat pumpkin, in the autumn and early winter, the time in which it is ready for harvest. I am also a huge proponent of eating seasonally, so all of these reasons tickle my fancy! Plus I generally only eat it in season, so it is a treat for me every year.

Now when you bring in the element of canning, something I want to experiment with this year, you can have veggies and fruits that are not in season, because you prepared them for eating later, by preserving. I did not can my own pumpkin, here, but I did have some canned pumpkin in my pantry, just the same. I got a hankering to do something with it, and so I dove in.

pumpkin-bread_sliced

I knew I wanted to make Pumpkin Quick Bread, but I also wanted to try a baked dessert too. So I went with Pumpkin Brownies.

Both recipes were great, and even Roberto loved them, which is great, because he is kind of iffy about pumpkin, especially in dessert items. So now I know there are several pumpkin recipes I can make that he will love too!

For the Pumpkin Bread I used a combination of these two recipes , one from No Fear Entertaining and the other from RecipeGirl but used yogurt instead of oil and added raisins.

pumpkin-bread_brownies-ready-to-eat_on-dish

For the Pumpkin Brownies I used this recipe, except that before the last 10 minutes of baking, I topped the brownies with coconut, so it came out with toasted coconut on top! YUM!