Day: November 17, 2006

I took the pumpkin bread recipe our Lovely Daughter sent me and modified it a little. My modifications are in italics. For example, in place of 1/2 cup of oil in the batter, I substituted applesauce. For the sugar, I substituted a target=”_blank”>sucralose sugar replacement (the most well-known brand name is Splenda®). The rest, apart from the baking method and my insistence on using spices that are at least freshly-ground, is as Lovely Daughter sent it to me.

Since my Wonder Woman is still (after a whole day!) outa town, the trial loaf was mine all mine. 🙂

1 cup pumpkin pie filling—I added a medium egg to the cup measure I used to measure the canned pumpkin purée
1/2 cup applesauce
3/4 cup granulated sugar substitute (I used a sucralose-based sugar replacement)
1/2 cup molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly-ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly-groundnutmeg
1/4 teaspoon freshly-ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon freshly-ground ginger (or crystalized ginger, whichever you can get)

You may also add 1/2 cup of coarsely-chopped nuts. Your choice, although I’d avoid peanuts, since they just don’t seem right according to my mental taste buds. (I certainly didn’t use any peanuts, and I have a bag of raw peanuts to snack on right here. :-)) In the future, I may add raisins and/or chopped dates, as well. Who knows?

Heat oven to 350° F. Oil a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan.

In a large bowl, combine the pumpkin pie filling, oil, sugar, molasses, and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. Slowly stir the flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture. Pour into the prepared pan. Bake for 60 to 65 minutes.

Or, instead of all the mixing and oven baking go with my major modification: place the ingredients in your bread machine, hit the appropriate button (mine is “Batter Breads”) and walk away.

Transfer pan to a wire rack for 10 minutes. Using a knife, loosen the bread from the pan. (Or, in the case of a decent non-stick bread machine pan, just tip it out onto your cutting board.) Invert it onto a cutting board. Serve warm.

In Advance: Bake the bread and let it cool. Wrap and set aside at room temperature for up to 24 hours. Cover with foil and warm in a 250° F oven for 30 minutes.

To Freeze: Place the cooled bread in a resealable plastic bag or cover with 2 layers of plastic wrap. Store for up to 3 months.

To Reheat: Refrigerate the bread overnight. Remove the plastic wrap, cover with aluminum foil, and warm in a 250° oven for 30 minutes.

Yield: Makes 6 to 8 servings

Update on trial loaf: the applesauce replacement for oil does make the bread more “chewy” and the molasses is a rather strong flavor. I might try this with less molasses in the future, but as it is, good eats.

I’m sure you’ve heard the newsbit. I gleaned this version of the story from one of the many emails I have featuring it:

The Supreme Court has ruled that there cannot be a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. this Christmas. This isn’t for any religious or constitutional reason. They simply have not been able to find three wise men and a virgin in the nation’s capitol.

There was no problem, however, finding enough asses to fill the stable.

Over at The Random Yak, the end of the “Christmas Alphabet” nears. Soon, he’ll declare “open season” on Christmas posts by The Christmas Alliance. Naturally, given my birthplace, I’m jumping the gun. (And no, “statistically speaking” I dunno the how many of y’all got that. But TRY will get this, of course.)

This is an open trackbacks post. Link to this post and then track back. If you want to host your own linkfests, check out the Open Trackbacks Alliance.

Also note the other fine blogs featuring linkfests at Linkfest Haven.

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Hugh Hewitt had another (of course) insightful post yesterday that I believe it would serve well every reader of this blog to read in full. Here’s a sample:

Now imagine if you didn’t read blogs and didn’t read books. Picture all the things that you know now that you wouldn’t know if you left your news gathering to the tender mercies of the mainstream media’s editorial decisions. You’d probably be unaware of the ghastly fate that awaits 200 French automobiles each evening at the hands of rampaging “youths.” You’d definitely be unaware of the youths’ affiliation with certain religious practices.

If all your news came from newspapers, you wouldn’t understand how numerous, determined and flat-out crazy our enemies are. You wouldn’t know how widespread the phenomenon of Radical Islam is because the New York Times, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal don’t report it. Every now and then you would stumble over an editorial or op-ed piece highlighting a particularly pathological incident, but you would have no concept of how massive the problem is.

AND THIS IS WHERE WE CLOSE THE LOOP. I’ve long wondered how our leaders can be so unserious about the fight we’re in given the existential stakes. Now I get it – they just don’t understand the stakes. The newspapers haven’t told them that we’re in a fight for our lives. Lord knows the intelligence agencies don’t get it. And now we know the congressmen themselves take either no or precious little initiative to educate themselves.

Hugh, of course, is much more gentlemanly than I in his assessment of our congresscritters’ ignorance of threats facing the United States, the threat of Islamism among them. I would simply say that, regardless of individual congresscritters’ basic intelligence, such ignorance amounts to willfull criminal ignorance, stupidity.

But perhaps these stupid congresscritters can be taught. If so, it’d best be done by people like Hugh. I have little patience for fools. I’m more persuaded that a tea party might just be a better idea, sometimes. *sigh*