Frugal Friday Tips from the Kitchen and a Pumpkin Recipe

October means pumpkins on my porches and in my kitchen.

It's that time of year when I want to be whipping up goodies that smell and taste like autumn.  Since I buy canned pumpkin when it goes on sale in the fall and stock my shelves with it, I could (and sometimes do) make pumpkin desserts year round.  But when the leaves start turning and the cool days string together, I really want to start using that pumpkin.  Did you notice that first frugal tip?  Buy cheap and store for later!  I'll be talking a lot more about that in the months to come. 

This week, I decided to pull out Mom Wray's recipe for pumpkin bread.  It's a family favorite and tastes so good!   I made a double batch!  Making sweet nut breads are as simple as mixing dry ingredients with wet and pouring into a pan. While shopping at Fresh Market, I noticed they had their breads buy one get one free.  Even at that reduced price, it's less expensive to make your own.   Frugal tip #2.

Begin by mixing all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.  You don't even have to use a mixer, you can mix this by hand if you like.  But my mixing bowl is the largest bowl I have, so I use it.

Into the flour mixture goes lots of warm spices, like cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.

In a separate bowl, the wet ingredients are mixed together.

Eggs first,

then oil, water and applesauce.  Now applesauce is my own little trick to using less oil.  It makes the bread healthier (although, to be honest I'm not really too concerned with that for this recipe), and since I live in apple country and make my own applesauce its less expensive than oil.  Frugal tip #3.

I love nuts in my bread, but nuts are expensive!  Just today I noticed the price of pecans in my local grocery store were $9.59 for 10 ounces.  I buy mine from Sam's and they are a little cheaper, but even then they are on the pricey side.  Here's a great tip for stretching this precious baking commodity.  Lightly toast your nuts on the stovetop before adding to your recipe.  You have to do this on low temperature and stir constantly, because they will burn quickly and then you obviously aren't saving money if you have to throw them out and start over.  The toasting process brings out the flavor of the nuts and you can use half the amount the recipe calls for without sacrificing the taste at all.  Frugal tip #4.

Toast, then chop.

Mix wet ingredients with dry and stir in nuts.  Pour into baking pans.  I like making mini loaves and this recipe will make five or two large loaves if you prefer.

The recipe calls for two cups of pumpkin, leaving this much leftover from the second can.  Little containers of food like pumpkin, can easily find their way to the back of the refrigerator and by the time you pull them out they can be covered with fuzzy growth.  I'm sure I'm not the only one that happens to, right?

When I put it in the fridge, I jot myself a note on the pad on the door that I have pumpkin in here that needs to be used.  And if the cookie making doesn't happen, I can always stir it into my oatmeal for breakfast, or make pumpkin waffles.  Oh, yeah!  Frugal tip #5 - always know what's in the refrigerator that needs to be used.  Wasted food is wasted money.

Here's the results of today's baking adventure.  What am I going to do with all of that bread?  Well, I tucked a couple of loaves into a "goodie box" that is accompanying two musicians back to Colorado and the rest will be gifts for some amazing ladies who will be helping me out with a primary training tomorrow morning.  And I kept a few for my sweetheart who just happens to love pumpkin bread.  I hope you try this one out for yourself.  I think you'll be happy with the results.

Mom Wray's Pumpkin Bread

3 1/2 cups unbleached plain flour

3 cups sugar

1/2 t. baking powder

2 t. baking soda

Stir the above ingredients together and then add:

1 1/2 t. salt

1 t. cloves

1 1/2 t. cinnamon

1 1/2 t. nutmeg

1 t. pumpkin pie spice

Mix well.  In another bowl, mix:

4 eggs

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup applesauce

2/3 cup water

1 t. vanilla

2 cups pumpkin

1 cup toasted, chopped nuts

Add wet ingredients to dry and mix well.  Pour into greased and floured pans.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes (5 small loaves) or for 1 hour (2 large loaves)

* If you don't use applesauce, you would use 1 cup of oil.