Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

I was CRAVING chocolate chip pumpkin bread this weekend.  It's becoming fall, the leaves are turning color, there is a crisper bite in the air, we burn a harvest scent candle at dinner.  This is the fall I love, the fall that is still summer lol I can still wear flip flops with the temperatures in the 70s.  Anyway I felt like making pumpkin bread so I made it! 
This is a Cooking Light recipe so it's semi-healthy.  There are still a decent amount of calories but it's healthier than it could be.  There are things you could do to lower the calorie amount.  You could replace some of the oil with apple sauce and you could use maple sugar in place of the sugar.  I wouldn't replace the sugar with artificial sweeteners but maybe Stevia could work?  I've never cooked with it though so I don't know.  One of the products I also like for replacing sugar is Whey Low.  It's a natural sweetener (more natural than Stevia) that is made from whey.  I didn't replace anything for this recipe because mom likes all her recipes just regular so they taste the same as what she remembers.  My mother also doesn't gain/lose weight like I do so counting calories for her isn't a big deal.  (Let me tell you, living on your own when you make all the dietary decisions is a lot easier on the waistline).  And of course this recipe has pumpkin so it's definitely healthy ;) All those antioxidants. 

Here are the ingredients needed:  flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, all spice, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder, canola oil, eggs, milk, pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling), and chocolate chips.

I've recently started sifting my dry ingredients. I never used to, I thought it was all hokey.  I mean what does it matter if your flour is fluffy, you're just going to mix it all together anyway.  But then I read an Alton Brown book and he essentially said anyone who doesn't sift their flour is getting non-fluffy awesome baked goods.  So I'm trying sifting (he just whirls the dry ingredients in the food processor, I use a strainer) for the time being. 

My mound of sifted flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and all spice.  I put the salt in afterwards since I use Kosher salt and it doesn't fit through the strainer.

Next add the sugar, eggs (it called for egg substitute but never buy that stuff so I just used two more eggs in place of the half cup of egg substitute), canola oil, and vanilla (which I added in just for kicks because everything needs vanilla).

Mix them till everything is incorporated.

Then add a can of pumpkin (you can make you own as well) and 2/3 cup of water.  Mix till it looks like orange soup.

This is my favorite picture of the whole bunch.  The colors and the lighting look really good to me.

Then add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients mixing just until barely combined.  Lumps are a GOOD thing.

Now dump a bag of chocolate chips in a bowl and add a tablespoon of flour.

Mix them around to coat the chocolate chips with flour.  This helps them float in the batter and not all sink to the bottom.

Add them to the batter and mix them in by hand.

Luciousness :)

Coat two baking pans with crisco (or butter) then dust them with flour.  You could also use parchment paper.

Then evenly divide the batter into the loaf pans and bake for about 50 minutes to an hour until everything is baked though.  Pumpkin is notoriously wet so it takes a long time to bake.  Fyi pumpkin cheesecakes like to tsunami over the edges of the pan. But that's another story for another day.  One that Sarah can tell.

See how the chocolate chips stayed incorporated throughout the whole loaf?  That's what the flour did.  Yummy chocolate :)

And here is a picture of the finished loaf.  The finished half a loaf.  Because we at the other half.  For which I am partly responsible.  I refuse to feel shame!

Here's the recipe!

3 1/3 cup flour
1 tbs baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp all spice
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup egg substitute (or two eggs)
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup low-fat butter milk (or skim milk)
2 eggs
2/3 cup water
1 (15oz) can of pumpkin
1 bag chocolate chips
1/3 cup pecans (if you want to sprinkle them on top)

1.  Mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and all spice) together and then sift them.
2.  Mix sugar, eggs/egg substitute, canola oil, buttermilk/milk, and 1 tsp of vanilla in a mixer until incorporated.
3.  Add water and pumpkin to the egg mixture and beat until incorporated.
4.  Add the sifted dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix till barely incorporated (leaving some lumps).
5.  Toss a bag of chocolate chips in 1 tbs of flour then mix into the batter.
6.  Divide batter evenly between two greased and floured loaf pans.
7.  Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes to an hour (or until a tooth pick inserted comes out clean).
8.  Once pans are removed from the oven let them sit for about ten minutes, the take the pumpkin bread loaves out and let them cool on a cooling rack.

Teachers

This is a picture I took yesterday while on a site visit.
I'm doing a small tenant in an existing building.  The previous use of this space was for a day care center.  Due to budget cuts it was decided that it would better serve as offices. 
Anyway, when we got to the building we were escorted to the space by a lady who worked there.  Once you get into the room you're met with tons of these ribbons hanging from the ceiling.

Apparently the woman who ran the daycare would hang signs and pictures from them for the kids.  There was no other furniture in the room but the ribbons were still there because the ceiling was so high (11'0") and the lady had knotted the ribbons and put them in the ceiling so you couldn't pull them out.
When I started to pop the ceiling tiles out the ribbons would fall to the floor.  No big deal, I was just going to pick them up later, but then I noticed the lady who worked there who had shown us to the room and stayed with is for security's sake had picked up every ribbon that had fallen.  She kept doing this so I asked her what she was doing. 
She told me that she has a sister in Pennsylvania who is a teacher and who had been given $260 for the entire year as a budget to use on activities.  So she was picking the ribbons off the floor so she could send them to her sister in case she could use them.  These ribbons weren't new.  Some of them were frayed most of them were a bit faded, and yet they were still important enough that she would pick them off the floor.  So we went around and popped all the ribbons out of the ceiling so she would have about fifty to send to her sister.
Here's to all the teachers out there who are trying their best to make their students' learning experience the best it can be on limited funds.  It's hard, and a lot of them use their own funds. 
Thank you teachers.

Art

Alright more obsession with Target. Just a forewarning.

It all started when I got this picture for my birthday.  I had seen it in Target and shown it to my mom because it matches the color of my room and furnishings perfectly (periwinkle blue and a light teal/turquoise).  This is a light canvas about 2.5' x 2.5' and my thought process was that it would easily move to an apartment and was light enough to even be hung with a command hook (which I can't use on my walls right now because apparently the high quality gloss paint we used doesn't allow command hooks to adhere tight enough.  Fyi in case you decide to use Behr paint).

Well this started an obsession.  I now check this section of Target every time I go.  Earlier this summer I saw this little beauty.  And of course I had to get it since it matches the print I already have so well!

See, they match since they are both neutral tones and both have hydrangeas.  But not too matchy matchy.  Mixing patterns and all that can be done if you keep the color palette the same :)

Then I saw this one!  Be still my heart!  It was GORGEOUS!  It's a little bigger so 2.5' x 3.5' this time.  I love the pops of poppy red and the hints of pink.  I obviously can't put this one in the same room as the others but I will design a room around these colors.  I'm thinking navy blue walls and white accents (so nautical theme) but then switching it up with the orange!

I thought I was finished and done, I'd stocked up on enough pictures to cover a few walls so I was set.  And then this weekend I was at Target aaaand . . . I saw this one.  Now it doesn't have the same impact at the orange poppies and isn't as classically traditional as the hydrangeas but IT MATCHES EVERYTHING.  I'm not kidding.  You can hold this canvas up to any wall in any room and it will match.  It has greens and blues and reds and purples and yellows and essentially a rainbow but it doesn't scream rainbow.  There is enough neutral to tone the colors down and then the only colors that amplify are the ones that match the room.  Anyway, it was a perfect piece and I had to add it to my collection.  I'm sure I'll find some more in the future but for right now, that is my collection of art for my non-existent apartment!  Now go to Target and buy some yourself!  (They're around $50 each). 

Pasta Maker

Ahhh Kitchen Aid how I love thee.  I got these little beauties for the Easter egg hunt (perks of still living with the rents) which we actually celebrated in May after Sarah came home from college bc an Easter egg hunt with just me and my 16 yr old, too cool for the world sister would have been SO MUCH FUN!  Anyway, along with the little things that fit in eggs like erasers in the shape of frogs and fuzzy pom pom chickens and candy my mom writes a scavenger hunt clue in one of our eggs.  We then have to go find our one big present.  This was mine this year (it was 20% off at Bed Bath and Beyond but still this was expensive fyi).

Skills.  Not.

I, of course, immediately jumped in and made pasta that week!  Here is one of my first attempts.  As you can tell I hadn't gotten the hang of it yet.

Ok, now I can claim skills.

So much better!  I'm such a fast learner :D

Rollin,' rollin,' rollin.'

The basic concept is you attach the sheeter (thing that rolls pasta dough into sheets) to the KitchenAid mixer.  It has a dial on the side that goes from 1 to around 7.  You take a ball of pasta dough and put it through on level 1 to flatten it out.  Once you've put it through a few times, folding it over as you go, you change to level 2 which makes it a bit thinner.  And so on and so on.  If you go too thin too fast you'll end up with dough like the first picture.  It's all about incrementally changing and getting thinner . . . hmmm this sounds like an add for Weight Watchers (tried it but I actually like Livestrong.com better and livestrong is free).

Then once the pasta is flat enough you change the attachment on the front from the sheeter to the spaghetti (or linguini) maker and feed the flat pasta sheet through.  For obvious reasons you would only feed it through once.

Move over Mario Batali!

Ah yummy, fresh, looooong spaghetti!  And no I did not cut it in half.  My family just had to twirl and twirl and twirl and I'm not in the least bit sorry.  Ha.

Target Run

So I haven't been to Target in a while.  I needed my Target therapy.  So when I went last Saturday I went all out and since the clothing section is the first section you see when you come in the door . . . let's just say that I did most of my therapy in the clothing section.

Here are some of the things I got.

This has a mullet hem line in the back and is sheer.  This would go perfectly with skinny jeans, a black motorcycle jacket, and booties.  A tank top under the shirt is optional ;)  At work you would definitely need a tank top, but after work at a bar you definitely could.

This is actually a deep burgundy.  I wore it today with a dark gray cardigan and a peach tank to add some pop.

  

Ok I live in these tank tops.  Pretty much every day I wear these under my shirts.  They are tight enough that they don't add bulk under a shirt and they're long enough that they don't ride up.

A v-neck t-shirt.  Always need more of these.  This was a jewel tone so it works well for Fall.

A light purple tweed-like material dress on sale for $30 bucks.  Um yes.  Couldn't pass this deal up!  Perfect for K-State pride a perfect for work.  It would look awesome with boots.  Not purple boots though, that would be tacky, even for a K-State fan :)

Um every girl needs a good pair of capri leggings so she can wear dresses during the winter.

My old leggings had a thin waist band.  I don't look good in a thin waist band.  It squeezes things and gives me a roll on top and a bulge on the bottom.  A thick waist acts like spanx.  At least a little.

Ah shopping therapy, how I enjoy thee.

Juicing

So I ordered this Wednesday night and I got Friday afternoon.  Let's just say Amazon Prime is amazing.  I highly recommend it.  I bet you can't tell what it is by looking at the box!

Look at that packaging!  There is no wasted space.  I wonder how many trees they could save if they made custom packaging for each box . . . probably a lot.

Hey look it's a juicer!  You throw the fruit or veggies in and it spins all the water out.  Pretty cool I think.  This one got good reviews on Amazon so I decided to try it out.

I should probably take a picture of how it was packaged so I can repackage it later when I move.

All the packaging.

All the parts and pieces.  All I wanted to do was jump right in and start using it!  But noooooo I had to wash the stupid thing.  Ugh I hate washing dishes.

All washed and pretty :)

Now to assemble.  First put the juice catcher thingy on the base.

Then put the mesh bowl strainer thingy in the middle of the juice catcher thingy (I'm so technical aren't I!)

Careful this mesh bowl has really sharp blades on the bottom.

Then put the lid on.

Now lift the metal handle that locks the lid in place.  You do have to use a decent amount of force to lift the handle and push it into place, but don't worry you won't break the thing.  This will keep the top of the contraption from flying off when you're using the juicer.  There is definitely enough air going on in there to push the lid off if you don't lock it.

 

This is the plunger that helps press the food down the tube.  Don't press too hard but do apply pressure.
 

Now here, here is the reason I got the juicer.  See this bag that we got when mom was buying clothes to take on her and Dad's Canada vacation?  This bag is chock full of . . .

Veggies!  Green leafy veggies.  We have a TON.  We get veggies from the CSA (community supported agriculture.  You pay a certain amount at the beginning of the season and every week you get fresh veggies) every week and we can normally find ways to eat the egg plant and the green beans and the tomatoes, but the green leafy collards and kale and chard always stump me.  It's not like you can make a salad out of them. Anyway we have a lot of them just sitting there and instead of letting them go to waste I wanted to use them up.  So I got a juicer to juice them.

Here's what I tried for my first juice concoction.  Swiss chard and apple.  I thought I might need some lime juice but I decided against it.  So disregard the lime in the picture.  Thank you.

It says you can leave the apples whole and just cute them small enough to fit in the chute, but I cut the hard part with the seeds out first.  Mainly I was worried that the hard seeds would harm the blade, but Sarah also told me a story a while ago where a woman put a ton of apple seeds in a pie for her husband and he died of arsenic poisoning.  I doubt this is true (who would want to eat a crunchy apple pie for goodness sake) but if in the off chance there is arsenic in apple seeds I don't want it anywhere near my juice!

  

First turn the juicer on.  While is running feed the tube into the chute.  Once the piece of fruit is finished it will go pop and the pieces will be blown over the side from the juicing part to the pulp part.  This caught me off guard the first time and I thought I had done something wrong but no it just goes "poof" no more apple!  You can put more than one piece in the chute at once.  Also when juicing greens juice them with something else that has a lot of juice like a fruit.  You'll get more juice out of the greens that way.  Also bunch the greens up.

This is the de-juiced pulp that is left over.  Great for the composter.

This is my juice!  It has the apple juice on the bottom, the chard juice in the middle and the foam on the top.  I don't know why juicing makes foam but I just spoon it off as much as I can.

Give it a good mix and there is your juice!  It was ok, definitely earthy.  The apple made it sweet.  I gave some to Becca and she freaked out and hated it but then again it's Rebecca.  So I'm not a hard core juicer eating only greens and ginger and such yet.  Maybe I will be when I move out and am living by myself.  For right now I think I'll stick to the sweet fruits and veggies (like apples and carrots) and only put a few greens in.  I'm also excited to try the common juices like lemonade and orange juice.  I juiced some apples today and made REALLY good fresh apple juice.  It was so sweet and I added no sugar (Rebecca actually liked it).  So this was my first foray into juicing!  Lots more juices to try!

**I also wanted to mention that I used organic swiss chard from the CSA grown locally in Virginia and organic apples that I washed.  If I ever use un-organic apples I would probably peel them and I'm pretty hesitant to use greens that weren't grown locally.  Both those fruits and anything else on the dirty dozen list carries the risk of pesticides and salmonella and listeria.  Since I'm eating this juice raw and it hasn't been pasteurized or cooked the risk it higher.  So wash your veggies no matter what and buy organic!**