Pumpkin Week

As I was making a weekly menu plan a few days ago, I was attempting to incorporate more seasonally available ingredients into our meals. Sure I love my morning smoothie with frozen fruits, spinach, and greek yogurt, but I would love to start cooking with the fresh squash, asparagus, and pumpkins that I see in the produce section this time of year. Not only are certain produce items typically available for shorter buying periods but during that time they tend to taste better and are cheaper than their off-season. In order to challenge myself to buy more seasonal items, and to use them before they go bad, I thought I would pick one produce item a week to creates some meals around.

What food first you ask? If you know me, you probably know that I love pumpkins. Eating pumpkins, carving pumpkins, decorating with pumpkins, really you can't go wrong with any of these options in my opinion. Last fall, when my husband and I got married, we received many pumpkin themed gifts. Our relatives found out that one of Luke's pet names for me was pumpkin and now we are blessed with an abundance of sweet pumpkin decor. For one of my bridal showers a dear woman at church gifted me with a cookbook. On one page she covered the author's recipe with her own and I am so thankful she did because hers is now my very favorite quick bread recipe. This pumpkin bread is tasty and has been a hit with whatever group I have taken it to.

I was going to type this recipe out but how cute is the laminated card that she taped into my recipe book? She also changed the index to include her recipe. It makes me smile. Do yourself a favor and make this soon. This recipe makes 2 loaves or you could make half a recipe and save half the can of pumpkin for the next recipe in pumpkin week like I did...aren't you hooked now :) Ohh and I know I was supposed to be using new fresh produce but it was so much quicker to buy an organic can of pumpkin rather than roasting a fresh pumpkin, Maybe next year I will cook my own pumpkins rather than paint them.