Category: breakfast Dishes

Susie’s Cranberry Pumpkin Bread

“I don’t even use a mixer with this one. Quick prep time!” says our niece Susie, and she is right. Making this cranberry pumpkin bread is fast and easy.

With just a little bit of oil and generous amounts of pumpkin and applesauce complemented by the tartness of fresh or frozen cranberries, this bread is moist and delicious. Canned pumpkin, applesauce and cranberries are all excellent sources of fiber too, so this bread is also good for you.

Slice it thick and spread it with unsalted butter for a special treat.

INGREDIENTS:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. allspice
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
2 eggs
2 cups sugar
15 oz. can pumpkin
1/2 cup applesauce
1 T vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups cranberries

PROCEDURE:

Sift the flour, spices, baking powder and salt together into a large mixing bowl. In another mixing bowl beat the eggs until they are lemon colored and stir in the sugar, pumpkin, applesauce and oil.

Preheat the oven to 350º. Grease and flour two 5 x 9 inch loaf pans. Cut the cranberries in half.

Stir the sugar mixture into the dry ingredients until moistened, then fold in the cranberries. Don’t beat the batter, just make sure that everything is moist and mixed together.

Spoon the batter into the loaf pans and bake 55 minutes, then test for doneness. A toothpick will come out clean when the bread is done. If batter sticks to the toothpick, bake another five minutes and test again. If the bread is not too brown on top, bake it an extra couple of minutes after the toothpick test says the bread is done.

Remove the pans to a rack and cool for about twenty minutes. Loosen the loaves and put them on the rack to finish cooling.

NOTES: Susie uses pumpkin pie spice, but we like the spices we use for pumpkin pie. Use whichever you prefer.

Using 5 x 9 inch pans produces loaves that are about 2 1/2 inches high. If you want higher loaves, use 4 x 8 inch pans and adjust the cooking time to make sure that the loaves are done.

Creamed Eggs on Toast

I don’t remember when I first made creamed eggs on toast, but it was probably when we still living in Kentucky. We had bought Beard on Bread shortly after it was published in 1973, and the book got me interested in James Beard. He loved tarragon and, as I have mentioned elsewhere, he once said that “tarragon is the best friend a chicken ever had.”

I am sure that comment prompted me to try adding tarragon to béchemel sauce for creamed eggs. If tarragon was good for chicken, as I knew it was, it should be good for eggs too. And it is.

Béchemel sauce is one of the “mother” sauces in French cooking. Don’t let the name scare you. In English we call it a white sauce, and it’s a “mother” because it has many children, depending on what is added to it. For instance, many cream soups owe their velvety texture to a thin béchemel sauce. A medium sauce with Swiss cheese becomes sauce Mornay , and soufflés begin life as a thick béchemel sauce.

For creamed eggs, you make a medium white sauce flavored with tarragon, pepper, nutmeg and hot sauce. It is simple and delicious for breakfast or even a light lunch or supper.

INGREDIENTS:

4 large eggs
4 T butter
4 T all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. tarragon
1/4 tsp. white pepper
Dash of ground nutmeg
A few drops of hot sauce
2 cups milk plus a little more if needed
Toast

PROCEDURE:

Cover four large eggs with cold water in a saucepan. Boil the eggs for four minutes. Cover the pan, turn off the heat and allow the eggs to finish cooking in the hot water for eight minutes. Drain the hot water off the eggs and chill them in ice water for a minute. Peel the eggs and set them aside.

While you are peeling the eggs, melt the butter over low heat in a one and a half or two quart saucepan. Using a wooden spoon, stir the flour into the butter to make a smooth paste, which is called a roux. Add the salt, tarragon, pepper and nutmeg and continue cooking the roux for about four minutes, being careful not to brown it. The tarragon will color the roux an unappetizing gray-green, but don’t worry, everything will be okay.

While the flour is cooking heat the milk to steaming, either in a pan on the range or in your microwave. Stir the milk into the roux with a whisk or fork until you have a creamy white sauce. If it seems a little too thick, add a little more milk. Cook the sauce for five minutes.

Slice or chop the eggs and stir them into the sauce. Add a few drops of hot sauce, taste and adjust the seasoning.

Serve over toast.

NOTES: This recipe makes four generous servings.

Don’t even think of using oleo to make a roux. The sauce is better with whole milk, but one or two percent milk is okay. I have never tried skim milk.

Instead of peeling the eggs whole as for making deviled eggs, I often just cut the eggs in half and pop the egg out of the shell with a table knife. Just be careful not to include too much shell when you add the eggs to the sauce.