The bread: Oatmeal pumpkin bread

At the end of the last bear story there was this teaser photo of a mini loaf of bread:

With the not quite 1 cup of pumpkin from my last pumpkin roasting, I decided to try Oatmeal pumpkin bread from page 100 of Artisan Bread in 5 minutes per day…my high moisture dough “Bible”. I highly recommend this book if you want to try the high moisture thing….aside from good recipes there are lots of instructions, troubleshooting and info that helps understand the why and how of working with high moisture dough. And understanding some of the why and how helps if you want to experiment. And if you experiment some things work and some don’t and the book info helps you tweak things so they DO work…I speak from experience :)!

But for this dough, I followed the recipe exactly.

For the bread, I followed the adaptation on page 102 for Oatmeal Pumpkin Seed bread – almost…I used sunflower seeds instead of pumpkin seeds because I wasn’t thinking or reading carefully. In this case a “mistake” that worked fine!

This little bread was as good as it looks. And the dough – it rises wonderfully. This is not a sweet cake like pumpkin bread ala banana or zucchini bread. It is very slightly sweet as there is a little honey as well as pumpkin in the dough. It is a whole grain bread: half white flour, but the remaining is a mix of oatmeal, whole wheat and rye flour.

The cranberry seed variation made a wonderful roast turkey sandwich. And black forest ham was good on it also.

It made excellent toast.

I made an apple hand pie with the same dough on Saturday morning. It smelled so good and was sitting there with a bit of carmelized apple and cinnamon so I ate it!

No photo.

But, on Sunday, I decided to add some sausage to the apple so I could call it breakfast. I drizzled a little maple syrup over all before sealing them up.

A bit of egg wash and they are ready for the oven.

The hardest thing about making this kind of thing is waiting for it to bake and cool enough to eat.

My kitchen floor is nearly always sticky or crunchy or both. So I cleaned the floor. 10 minutes down, 20 to go.

Tick-tock.

Worth. The. Wait.

I made a mini loaf without cranberries and seeds.

And then I was out of dough.

The big green squash are “winter squash”…I think. I looked at a number of photos, conferred with my mother…we think they are winter squash. They are wonderfully flavored. I like them better than pumpkin – the texture is smoother and they are just a bit sweeter. Most of the flavor we associate with pumpkin stuff is the spice combo. If you’ve ever tried plain pumpkin, you know it is nothing like the flavor of a pumpkin pie.

Second round for the dough, I thought I’d try some of the winter squash in place of the pumpkin. Not a risky experiment and the only difference I detected was that the goods are a tiny bit sweeter. I am not talking sweet like a cake or or cookies…just a bit sweeter than a plain dough.

Since bagels are a plain dough with a bit of sugar…

This dough makes wonderful bagels – crunchy outside, chewy inside.

On to “English” muffins and pizza. The muffins are cooked in a cast iron skillet. I did as I always do…a little cornmeal on them, a bit of olive oil and butter in the pan and a lid on top: 2-3 minutes per side.

Keeping with the pumpkin/squash, sausage and apple theme, for the pizza I spread a thin layer of squash for the sauce, thin slices of mozzarella, then sausage and apple slices. Fifteen minutes on a stone on the grill, a drizzle of balsamic syrup (reduced balsamic vinegar) and it was pizza for supper!

Nice crispy crust with just a bit of chew – perfect!

Wonderful, delicious, beautiful dough with a taste of Fall.

The sunroom

Autumn light is my most favorite light.

Outside…inside: in this little house…in the sunroom.

Autumn light’s medium-low sun angle…

…the soft warm-cool air

Bob.

Bob in the sun.

The herbs.

The shadows.

The chair…inside and outside.

Autumn light.

The sunroom.

I remain in love with Montana

I fell in love with Montana driving on Highway 2 from Sandpoint, Idaho … February, 1994.

Descending into the Flathead Valley and seeing the Continental Divide rising on the valley’s East Boundary…I fell in love.

I gasped, literally gasped and knew…

Almost 19 years later, I remain in love with Montana.

Another bear story without a photo of a bear.

Bear and I saw another bear today. (see Another episode of Wild Kingdom for Bear’s first bear encounter.)

A black bear.

A BIG black bear.

So.

Bear and I were in the Jeep returning from a brief outing to our walk on the empty subdivision road a bit to the north.

Shortly after we entered the “tree” part of our road, Bear’s nose was in the air and he was doing the scent gulp thing.

It had just registered in my brain that he was smelling a bear when we rounded a corner in the road and THERE WAS THE BEAR!

I am fairly vigilant for bears and particularly in the Fall and Spring. But as I think about it, I have NEVER seen a bear when I was expecting to see one. No, they are always a surprise.

And today was the first time I’ve ever seen one on a road.

The ever alert Bear sounded with the bear bark.

The bear turned toward us briefly…Bear was barking loud and continuously…the bear exited stage left off the side of the road, down a steep incline and into the woods.

Somewhere in there I was fumbling for the camera on the seat beside me.

Rats! Another bear story without a photo of a bear.

But…we cannot have a post without a photo…oh, no!!! THAT would not do.

So…a bit of a teaser…

What I did with that extra pumpkin:

I don’t think I have ever made a more beautiful little loaf of bread.

Oatmeal Pumpkin Sunflower Seed Cranberry Bread.

More later.

The frost is on the pumpkin… the first of probably several pumpkin posts…

If I had pumpkins outside, they would certainly have frost on them as it was 27 by my thermometer this morning.

Thankfully my pumpkins are inside, in a sunny window.

And so are the herbs. I have a plan for 2 window table/shelves and some extra lighting to see if I can coax the group to stay alive and growing through the Winter. I’m not much for inside plants so we’ll just see how this goes.

Rosemary…probably my favorite herb…she is nice and green, but the whole growing thing has not been happening. I did some reading. Rosemary likes sun and heat. Hoo, boy – she definitely will need the grow light AND the best sun spot. And she likes to be moist but not wet or dry. Rosemary, she is high maintenance: pray for her, please!!

Back to pumpkins. I had three from my CSA farm distribution. One has been dealt with…the smallest I cooked with the smallest squash to refine the process and decide if I wanted to buy a few more for extra pumpkin as well as squash puree.

I do! The process is easy and not time consuming. I think I have 20 minutes in this morning’s effort and that includes doing the dishes after.

The hardest part is slicing them open! I found that taking off the top is fairly easy. Then, halving and quartering is not so difficult as trying to halve from the get go. I think there is a physics principle in there somewhere about the strength of a sphere…

I put a bit of water in a pan, quartered (or smaller) pieces flesh side down and bake in a 400 degree oven for about 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, the seeds. I LIKE pumpkin seeds and they are full of good stuff. I buy them roasted (and shelled!). I decided to try roasting a few of my own as long as I have them. It is not the roasting, but the shelling part that might be the show stopper.

I’m not big on a mega processing kind of thing…a whole day making jam or dealing with the veg – I much prefer doing a number of small batches. So, one or 2 pumpkins at a time. But the seeds I decided to save until I have enough for a cookie sheet full. Today’s chore was just the cleaning and that was easy…soaked them in some water and the pulp slid off.

These went into the frig for later roasting…probably :)!

Pumpkin is done.

The skin is easily peeled off with a paring knife at this point. I defy anyone to peel an uncooked pumpkin with a paring knife and as far as I’m concerned peeling an uncooked pumpkin is putting fingers and hands at great risk with a large, very sharp knife that is apt to careen off who knows where. Too scary for me.

This method is easy, safe (r!) and I didn’t lose much pumpkin in the process.

I gave it a light mash – just enough so that I could pack and measure. A pie takes 2 cups.

Unfortunately, I decided to taste the mashed pumpkin. It was good!

A few bites too many and I ended up with a bit less than 2 cups. So…1 cup for the freezer and the partial for the frig and something other than pie. I haven’t decided what but I’ll probably share the result(s).

Change

Yesterday (Tuesday) morning started out a balmy 62 – a warm morning even during summer and completely unexpected for early October, especially with the long advertised cold front seemingly on its way.

Bob took advantage of both the sun and the warm air from the dryer.

Blue sky, white clouds and the larch just starting to lighten up as they go from green to chartreuse to gold.

I took advantage of the warm morning to keep to my shorts routine. I might get some afternoons in shorts, but a full day ??? – this was probably the last for awhile.

The herbs also enjoyed the sun and warm air.

That pretty much tells the story…it did get above 68 and stayed there until nearly 6 p.m.

I had the house open to the sun and the breeze. Although the wind kicked up in the afternoon, it stayed warm** until early evening. Much as I love Winter, I enjoyed this day of warm sun and breeze, even with the dust that the wind brought in.

By early evening, the wind shifted to the north and the air had that bite of a night that would get cold.

And today… morning started at 37F…AND….

Snow on the ski trails of Blacktail Mountain…

And Big Mountain…

And the mountains beyond the road home.

**I realize that for some, 62-68 might not seem like shorts weather! All is relative, though, and the humidity was very low at less than 20% AND my internal furnace runs hot, i.e. anything above 50…unless it is very damp…is shorts weather.