Good Health And Wellness For Life

Whenever we carve up a pumpkin for Halloween I'm always reluctant to throw the pieces out. That's good squash! We salvage the seeds and roast them for a tasty snack, put what to do with the pieces left over from carving out noses, eyes, and ghoulish smiles? This year we decided to make pumpkin bread and found an easy, straightforward recipe in the classic Fannie Farmer Cookbook. The recipe calls for a cup of pumpkin purée which you can either get from a can, or make yourself by steaming or roasting the pumpkin pieces, removing the skins, and blending in a food processor.

I think if you use pumpkin purée from a can you'll get a stronger pumpkin flavor. The spices make this quick bread quite tasty, and the squash helps the loaf stay deliciously moist. We use baked and steamed Halloween pumpkin, which is essentially squash and doesn't have as strong of a pumpkin flavor. It's a lot like a pumpkin version of banana bread. Very yummy and very easy to make.

My friend Suzanne performed an experiment with her family and me this evening. She baked two pumpkin pies, one using the purée and recipe from a can, the other using purée she made from a ripe sugar pumpkin.