Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

I have noticed before on my weekly menu options on Relish that they have offered desserts before but I have never fully been tempted to try them. I am not a fan, believe it or not, of pumpkin pie or anything that has those sort of quintessential "fall" flavors/spices. So I have no idea why I was tempted this time, but darn am I glad that I tried. I have sung this websites praises very vocally with friends and family and I mention it on most of my posts. A couple of years ago I was spending a good day coming up with menu plans by stealing from several "free" menu planning sites and I was just so sick of how much time and effort I wasted to put it all together. I remember just searching for a menu planning site one day when I had had enough and came across this site. Their opening page reminded me of my favorite magazine Real Simple and so I thought why not I will give it a try. That was over a year ago and I haven't regretted it sense. They have grown sense then, changed and I believe only gotten better. Granted there are times when I use their recipes and then change it to suit my tastes, and then there are times when I just think the recipe is asking me to do something totally funky and I question it but I still go with it and every time they have been spot on. So after all that if I was going to try a pumpkin bread from somewhere it might have been here and now! Wow am I glad that I did. It was relatively easy (the only reason I say that is because I made it with my kitchen aide mixer and while I was trying to do too many things at once I flipped the switch the wrong way - sped up the paddle- and slung pumpkin puree and sugar and what not all over my kitchen! I had a bit of clean up, but that was totally my blunder, the recipe was great it was myself that was an idiot!).

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

Prep time: 15 minutes Cook time: 1 hour

NOTE: this makes 3 loaves!

3 cups sugar

1 15-ounce can canned pumpkin

1 cup vegetable oil

2/3 cup water
4 large eggs
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups miniature chocolate chips (I added more chocolate chips and I think it was too much, still good but a bit much so stick with the original amount here)
1 cup chopped walnuts
3 9 x 5 aluminum loaf pans (I have never gone out and bought these before specifically to use but since this was a large batch I don't have 3 of these in metal bakeware so I went ahead and bought them... the ease of use was very nice)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
[1] Grease and flour three 9x5 inch loaf pans.
[2] In a large bowl, combine sugar, pumpkin, oil, water, and eggs. Beat until smooth. Blend in flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt. Fold in chocolate chips and nuts. Fill each loaf pan 1/2 to 3/4 full.
[3] Bake for 1 hour, or until an inserted knife comes out clean (mine took an additional 15 minutes on top of the hour). Cool on wire racks before removing from pans. Wrap 2 of them tightly with foil and place in the freezer.

Linked to Meet Me Monday, Mingle Monday, and Making Friends Monday. Also 
                             Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays, Tuesdays at the Table, and Tasty Tuesday, Fresh Clean
                             and Fun Fridays.

Homemade Bread

First loaf of bread with my breadmaker! This makes me remember when breadmakers were first introduced back in the 90's and I loved it, I swear I was one of the only people in our house that used it. I remember there was many a loaf that were way to dense, more like a brick than anything else but there is nothing like the smell of rising bread, or the smell of baking bread for that matter.

I was reading Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbra Kingsolver and throughout the book they would briefly mention that her husband was the bread maker of the family, and would make their daily loaf. It was never fully talked about, but again briefly mentioned throughout until the very end where Steven Hopp comes forth and mentions that he has been making these daily loafs with, you guessed it, a breadmaker. It was at this point that I could not get over the fact that this whole time they were using a breadmaker; it reminded me of when I had one myself. Oh the nostalgia!

I of course got on the phone with my mom to see if she in fact still had that ol' breadmaker. She unfortunately did not. According to my mother she had just recently given it away to Goodwill. So as a result my number one birthday present request was a breadmaker. This was probably for the better as I am sure the technology has improved since the first attempts. I know it is one more item on the kitchen counter but I think there are ways around it (I am omitting my future IKEA plans to make my kitchen space more user friendly and storage friendly I am sure that will be filled in in the future), and it is .50₵ a loaf people you can't argue with that! I was incredibly excited about getting this breadmaker, a joy that one can only assume others truly will not appreciate or understand, but I am oddly ok with that.

(notice how the bread is nice and airy, lots of holes and bubbles not dense at all, YES!)