CRANBERRY-SWEET POTATO QUICK BREAD

It's really hard for me to get out of the cooking mood once I'm in it!  Thanksgiving dinner thursday, this bread yesterday, and now I want to make more sweets, but I want all the other sweets we have in the house gone first....also, I ran myself out of flour making a double-batch of this bread yesterday!

This bread was good, but I think it needs more sweet potato flavor...maybe more spice, who knows.  And chopping the cranberries, well, that's a pain in the butt.  I wanted to use my food chopper but worried some would get too finely chopped, so I just used my knife.  But all in all, this was a delicious bread.  I didn't have any almonds so we skipped topping the bread with them before baking. 

Original recipe courtesy Cooking Light, November 1996

Yield: 16 servings (serving size: 1 slice)


2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

3/4 cup canned mashed sweet potato

3 eggs

1/3 cup orange juice

1/4 cup butter, melted and slightly cooled

1 cup chopped cranberries

Cooking spray

2 tablespoons sliced almonds



Preheat oven to 350°.



Combine first 7 ingredients in a large bowl; make a well in center of mixture. Combine sweet potato, egg substitute, orange juice, and margarine in a bowl; add to dry ingredients. Stir just until moist. Fold in cranberries.



Spoon batter into a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray; sprinkle almonds over batter. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pan. Let cool completely on wire rack.

With the schedules we keep in my house it is usually easier to plan our menus by the week.  Between the after-school programs, me teaching 2 afternoons a week and my husband in class 2 nights a week, it's nice to know exactly what the plan is as soon as we walk in the door.  I will frequently pull 2-3 days worth of meat out of the freezer at a time too, so I have no excuse but to cook it!

This week, though, I have planned 12 days worth of dinners.  It will likely stretch into almost 3 weeks though, because we have things like leftover pulled pork, chili, and spaghetti sauce in the freezer.  But, here is what I am planning for the next couple of weeks:

From Cooking Light magazine:
Green curry chicken
Spiced pork tenderloin with sauteed apples
Sloppy joe meatloaf (I'm using a sloppy joe recipe from CL and turning it into a meatloaf!)
Mexican chili-cheese burgers
Spicy chicken sandwiches with cilantro-lime mayo
Sesame noodles with chicken
Malaysian chicken pizza
Chili-beef soft tacos
Buttermilk-brined pork chops

From Epicurious
Grilled Marinated sirloin strip steaks
Chicken with sun-dried tomato cream sauce

And a recipe from a cookbook I looked through at work, then made a copy of this page:
Hawaiian turkey burgers

Finally, a recipe from Cook's Country
Oven-fried chicken

It's gotten really cold this week and a few of these recipes call for the grill, so it looks like we'll be putting our grill pan to work this week.  Our cut-off for grilling is about -20, but it takes a lot of propane to keep a grill warm at even 10 above, so I'll be grilling indoors.  I'm sure we'll throw in some leftovers as well as a night or two where we just make grilled cheese or throw some pizza bites in the oven.  But hopefully we can stick to this as much as possible!

Pumpkin Spice Latte

My friend Heather over at her blog, Out of the Box Into the Kitchen, found this recipe from yet another blogger.  She has been on a pumpkin kick and I figured, since Turkey Day is coming, I should try to get on the kick too!  So this morning I made a small batch...and had to go back and make some more!  I did alter it a little, just to see what worked best for my tastes, which I recommend you do as well.  If you like a stronger pumpkin flavor, add more pumpkin or spice (or both!).  I used Maxwell House the first time and North Pole Coffee's Musher's Blend the second.  The only thing is the pumpkin can settle on the bottom if you don't stir it while you drink.  So serve with a stir-stick or spoon to keep it blended.

Pumpkin Spice Latte-shared from Newlyweds


2 cups milk

3 tbsp pumpkin puree

2 tbsp sugar

1/2 cup strong coffee or espresso

1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

2 tsp vanilla

Place milk, pumpkin, and sugar in small saucepan, stir. Heat to steaming. Stir in spice and vanilla. Pour in coffee. Stir and place into mugs. Top with whipped cream if you wish.