Chocolate Pumpkin Loaf

Some of hte ladies at church have been making this lately and it's fantastic!


Pumpkin Chocolate Loaf


3 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 can (29 oz) pumpkin
3 squares (1 oz each) unsweetened
chocolate, melted & cooled
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups (12 oz) chocolate chips

In a large bowl combine sugar & oil. Add eggs; mix well. Stir in pumpkin, chocolate &vanilla; mix well. Combine dry ingredients; stir into pumpkin mixture just until blended. Stir in chips.

Transfer to 3 greased 9x5x3 loaf pans. Bake at 350 for 55-65 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes before removing to wire racks.

A stolen blog topic

Katy Wolk-Stanley over at The Nonconsumer Advocate posted this on her blog yesterday:

http://thenonconsumeradvocate.com/2013/08/five-things-that-make-me-happy-and-one-thing-thats-pissing-me-off-6/

(Apparently I can't imbed links anymore either!!! Sorry that isn't clickable.)

I’ve decided to rip off her idea and post some things that make me happy, maybe even add one that makes me not so happy. We’ll see as the post progresses…

1. My grandson falling asleep in my arms. There is nothing sweeter than a sleeping baby, and after he falls asleep I’d rather hold him than put him down and go do something else.

2. My group of close, caring, supportive friends. By close, I don’t always mean geographically close, most of them live far away. But I know they’re still there for me, no matter what.

3. All my parents and siblings, plus in-laws, are alive. Do you know how few people live to be my age without losing someone close to them? I’m very blessed.
4. A steady supply of good books to read, and eyesight good enough to read them.
5. Health. That might sound odd from someone battling psoriatic arthritis, feeling tired and achy and dizzy every day. But you know what? I get up and go to work, and do what I need to do, every day. Even when I don‘t want to. Even when I feel awful. I’m in a lot of pain right now as I type this but I’m at work, doing a good job and being a productive citizen, paying my own way in this world. Right now, in the breezeway outside my office, a homeless man sits in a wheelchair. He just got out of the hospital and the only place he had to come was back to the relative shelter of the awning over our church walkway. We stored a few things for him while he was away, to keep it safe. Today I’ve given him ice water a few times, and some food, and placed a couple of calls to see if I can either speed up his housing application or find a temporary place for him til the housing authority comes thru. Before anyone complains they should meet this man.

Something that makes me angry:

People who don’t appreciate the help they’ve been given and would prefer to be self-destructive and whiny instead of grabbing the opportunity to improve their lot in life. Nobody said it was gonna be easy, but we’re all in this boat together. Grab an oar already!

No pix

I dunno what's up with this site but lately I've been unable to post any pix at all. So many of my posts include pix, and since I can't show you what I've been up to, I've been pretty lax on posting lately. I hope this resolves itself soon. Meanwhile, let's talk!

Things have been pretty hectic at my house and I feel like I've accomplished NOTHING. I keep telling myself, this will only last for a finite period of time, then I can get back to normal. And I'm starting to see the end of the tunnel, but still. This dry spell where I have no time for creativity is starting to wear one me.

I've had a nasty eye infection and literally could not stand any light AT ALL for 4 days. I spent almost the entire 4th of July week in bed, in a darkened bedroom, with the covers over my head. I have never been so bored in all my life. I discovered the joys of audio books, since I couldn't do anything else I listened to books to pass the time. My weiner dog thought having Mom in bed all day was FANTASTIC, she got to sleep with me and snuggle under the covers, her favorite thing to do. During part of this time she was suffering from arthritis so we got to comfort each other. Win - Win situation!

During this time I also concluded that God has a sense of humor. I hear people say that all the time but now I get it. I've been whining for months how taking care of my infant grandson is exhausting for an "old lady" like me. Well, God gave me this ailment and made sure I got all the rest I needed, and then some! Haha, very funny. Now can I go back to my normal life? I promise I'll quit whining!!!

Free Food!!

Last weekend we were gifted with an abundance of free food by my former pastor and his wife.  It was incredible!  There was so much, beginning with a crate of raspberries. Unfortunately they were beginning to go bad, which meant I picked thru them to get the good ones out before they were all tainted.  I can’t begin to tell you how much I LOVE fresh raspberries so believe me, I got as many as I could!  There weren’t enough to make jam so I froze them for smoothies or muffins.  After eating my fill, of course. 

There was also a crate of bananas.  I gave several bunches away, then made banana pudding, and sliced and froze so many trays of them I lost count.  We’ve been eating them constantly (hubby loves banana sandwiches), and now that they’re beginning to be overripe, I hope to make banana bread tonight.  I also want to take some of the frozen slices and dip them in chocolate, then re-freeze, for popsicles for Drake. 

And then there was the corn.  Oh my goodness, I have no idea how many ears of corn we were given!  I gave several of those away too.  I shucked and silked the rest, cut the corn off the cob, and cooked it in 2 LARGE batches, which were then broken down and frozen into 8-9 generous meal-sized servings, with one batch going into the fridge to eat immediately.

Two cucumbers were included in the bag with the corn, so I turned them into a simple tzatziki by dicing finely and adding to some homemade yogurt along with salt, pepper, lemon juice and garlic.  There were also a bundle of green onions in there, which I have so far not even touched. 

In addition to all that, my lovely neighbors heard I’ve been sick with an eye infection.  They decided to make dinner for the family one night, and was it ever delicious.  Blackeyed peas, cornbread, sweet potato fries, corn, and a cake.  I always enjoy their down-home cooking!  I blended some of the blackeyed peas for Zane, he loved them!  The boy has good taste.

Bento whale in a pool of curry

In my previous post I mentioned making a bento whale for my grandson.  Well, now I’ve had several requests for the curry recipe, so I’ll tell you what I know!

I make curry 2 ways, either in a base of tomato sauce or a base of coconut milk.  If I’m understanding the Food Network channel correctly, the coconut milk one is Thai, and the tomato based one is Indian.  This may be entirely too simplistic but they both taste good, no matter the origins.  Both begin the same way.  I put some rice on to cook and start dicing vegetables.  Pretty much anything works for this, but I always seem to have carrots, peas and onion on hand so that’s my base.  Beyond that I’ve been known to throw in some broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potato, white potato, fresh green beans, cabbage, whatever is fresh and handy.  The more variety I have, the smaller amount of each kind goes in.  In a little oil I sauté anything that needs it, which I everything except the peas.  I buy those frozen.  Once they’re soft I put in my seasonings.  For a tomato base I sprinkle some curry powder into the oil and let it cook a minute so the flavors will bloom.  Stir it while this is happening, it might burn!  Let it coat the veggies.  I don’t like the curry powder you buy in the little red and white can at the grocery store, but at Fresh market in Destin, they sell a Madras curry powder in bulk that smells good enough to eat like a Lik-M-Stick.  Not that I’ve tried that.  Yet.  But I digress.  After the spices are heated up and smelling fabulous, I add the tomato sauce and whatever protein I‘m using, usually cooked lentils, occasionally chick peas, even more rarely I’ll add leftover meat.  I also add the peas and a little garlic at this point.  At this point all that‘s left is to let it simmer for 10-15 minutes and serve it over rice.  I add salt to mine but some people seem to think that’s all wrong.  To each her own.

As for the coconut curry, it’s the same until I get to the seasonings.  For this I go to one of the local Asian markets and buy a can of massaman curry paste, it’s less than $1 and it comes in a yellow can.  You can go to this link to see what the little yellow can looks like, so if you want to try this, you'll know what to look for. 

Massaman Curry Paste

There are plenty of other curry pastes available but this is the one I like.  Not too hot and spicy, but very tasty.  At the point where you’d sprinkle in the dry curry powder for the tomato curry, here you will spoon out some paste and stirfry it in the oil and let it coat the veggies.  For the size meal I make for my family, I use about half the can.  This is totally dependent on taste, I’d say start with a small amount and if it’s not to your liking, stir some more in later.  Then dump in some canned coconut milk.  For my family I use 2 cans, a small family or single person wouldn’t need to use that much.  Salt (again) seems to be optional but I like it in mine.  Add the peas, protein and garlic and simmer, stirring often for 10-15 minutes.  Serve over rice.  Preferably with a bento sea creature swimming in it.   

 

Since this is more a technique than a recipe, feel free to ask for clarification if there’s anything I didn’t make clear.  I hope you’ll try it, this is such a simple, fast and inexpensive meal.  It’s a vegetarian meal I know my family won’t complain about, those rotten die-hard meat eaters are such whiners sometimes but not when I serve this!    

I'll be linking this post to the Blissful and Domestic linky party, stop in over there and see what everyone else has been up to!

Blissful and Domestic

Stuff

We had a great visit with our extended family last week, the last one left on Friday so now we can get back to whatever passes for normal at our house.  They delivered our new shed while the kids were here, my step-son was a great help in getting it set up.  Since then, hubby and his employee have been hard at work fixing up the inside so it can be used as an office.  They’re coming right along!  It’s happening a lot faster than I expected.  I’ll post some pictures another time, I haven’t taken any yet but I’m sure hubby has.

As for me, I’ve been doing some sewing and cooking, and a very small amount of knitting.  It’s just too darn hot to knit, but I want to because I find it so soothing.  So now and then I pick it up and work a little just to calm my mind. 

I’m getting back into the groove of cooking, sort of.  This week I’ve made several meals, including a curry that included my second attempt at bento.  First I was going to make a shark, but it looked like some sort of mutant.  So I changed it to a whale, which looked a little better.  Drake said it was a dolphin so I must have been on the right track!!!

Doesn’t it look cute, swimming in a vegetable/lentil curry?

Last Saturday Tahnee and I went thrift-store shopping.  Waterfront Mission was having a 69 cents sale and I got a few items to be re-purposed into new clothing or quilts.  I made this tank top for Drake from one of those purchases:

 

Pay no attention to the blue plaid shorts, they actually matched what he had on before he tried on the new tank top.  I didn’t get a “before” picture of the shirt, sorry.  It was originally an Old Navy polo shirt, size medium. I was able to use the collar as the ribbing around the neck but there wasn’t enough to do the arm holes.  At first I tried just hemming the arm holes but it looked all stretched out and baggy so I went back and used a bit of the leftover fabric to do a sort of “ribbing” effect.  It worked.  You know, someday I’m going to have to learn to do sleeves….  All in good time.  

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Or at least elephants.  I'm learning the art of Bento, and I'll work my way up to other animals but so far all I've accomplished is an elephant out of a hot dog, and some vegetable flowers.

What do you think?

 

The elephant is resting on a bed of homemade lo mein.  Easy, easy recipe! 

 

1 lb spaghetti or rice noodles

2 cups broth

About 2 cups assorted veggies, diced

leftover bits of meat, optional

1 Tablespoon cornstarch

2 Tablespoons soy sauce

 

I used fresh carrots, peeled and sliced, half a yellow onion, and a handful of frozen peas in this dish.  I like broccoli or cauliflower in it but I didn't have either one.  Really, almost any veg will do.  I've even added leftover homemade eggroll filling.

 

Dice up the veg and start sautéing in a little oil.  Meanwhile, start cooking the pasta according to package directions.  Undercook it just a little so you can finish the cooking in the sauce and let it absorb all that yummy sauce goodness.  Once cooked, drain the pasta.

 

When the veggies are ready, add meat if using, then add the broth and bring it to a boil.  Stir together the cornstarch and soy sauce, then stream into the boiling broth, stirring all the while.  As soon as it starts to thicken, remove from heat and toss in the drained pasta.  Stir til all the pasta is coated and cooked thru.  Top with bento elephant and flowers, or not.  Serve with sweet chili sauce, if you have some.  That makes it FABULOUS.

 

This post is included on a linky party at frugallysustainable.com.  Go check out the other great ideas there!