F.A.L.L. Has Arrived!

This weekend the F.A.L.L. season finally made it's debut. The temps were in the low 60's, the air was crisp and the colors of fall are showing. It's one of my favorite seasons...love the cooler temp and the gorgeous colors of the leaves changing.  It's a calming time of year for me - fall colors are some of my favorite.  It's also that time of year for football ~ enjoy watching the Philadelphia Eagles and (my alma mater) the Penn State Nittany Lions. Pretty colors of fall: reds, golden yellows, olive green, etc. 

In the fall I love to make and freeze soups, stews and baked goods.  One of my favorite fall recipes is pumpkin bread.  I like to make these for family and friends at Thanksgiving and Christmas in those neat disposable foil bread pans that have the perfect plastic lid - makes a great gift!  During the holidays they have seasonal designs on them - perfect for gift giving, no wrapping needed! I wanted to  share with you my all time favorite pumpkin bread recipe.

MAPLE PUMPKIN BREAD
2 C all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground allspice
2 beaten eggs
1 C packed brown sugar
1 C canned pumpkin
1/2 C maple syrup
1/3 C canola oil
1 C chopped pecans

Note: you can substitue 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice for the spices in the recipe.

1. Grease bottom and half inch up sides of a 9 inch loaf pan.  Set pan aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl stir together flour, baking powder, cinnnamon, baking soda, nutmeg, and allspice. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients.
3. In a medium mixing bowl combine eggs, brown, sugar, pumpkin, maple syrup, and oil and mix well. Add all at once to dry mixture.  Stir just until moistened battter should be lumpy).  fold in pecans. 
4. Pour batter into loaf pan. Bake in a 350° oven for 60 to 65 minutes or till a wooden toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.  (If necessary, cover with foil the last 10 to 15 minutes of baking to prevent overbrowning.)  
5. Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 minutes.  Remove from pan and cool thoroughly on wire rack. 
6. Wrap and store overnight before slicing (I honestly never wait that long...it's tastes so good when it's warm - smothered with sweet cream butter!!)

It's not a low calorie bread - 238 calories / 10 g fat (1 g saturated fat) per serving - but definitely worth it.  I'm going to try making this with whole wheat pastry flour as a substitute for the all-purpose flour in an attempt to make a wee bit healthier :)

Besides baking and cooking, I made lots of new jewelry pieces this weekend.  Photos were taken, just waiting to be edited and then listed.  Check out these copper disk earrings that I applied cinnamon and golden yellow Vintaj patina to - they kind of look like pumpkins ??  I paired them with soft yellow jade teardrops, wire wrapped in oxidized copper - perfect fall colors!

Hope you all had a great weekend!  O.N.I.A.M. - oh no it's almost Monday (yeah I just made that up, lol! I hate Mondays).  May you have a great start to your week!

Live. Laugh. Love.