The Best Pumpkin Bread (Without Chocolate Chips Even!)

Wes and I made this today for some friends of ours. We found this recipe on the internet. We chose to use it for two reasons: First, because it had no less than 3,820 reviews and 5 stars. And second, because 96,450 people have saved it.... that's a lot of people, guys.

Ingredients:
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
3 cups white sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.
3. Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Enjoy!

Pear Salad

By far my FAVORITE salad out there. The cheese, the tart, the crunch..mm. YUM!
Note: I am horrible at measurements :-( but this recipe is easy to follow even, without the measurements.

About 4 cups of Spring mix (you can use any greens really, but these are my favs)
1/4 cup of chopped toasted pecans
1/4 cup of dried cherries
1/2 of  crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
1 firm/ripe pear (fresh, do not use canned or dried)
and some good Balsamic Vinaigrette.

Add items to salad bowl in order, and serve immediately.
Tips,

Serve, next to a nice piece of Stake and call it at night, it's that good :-)

Bow Tie Luau Salad

Ingredients:
1 green pepper, thinly sliced
1 red pepper, thinly sliced
1 yellow pepper, thinly sliced
1 package bow tie pasta, cooked according to directions
3-6 chicken tenders, cooked and shredded
1 small package spinach, washed
1 c. sugared almonds

Directions:
Combine peppers, cooked bow tie pasta, shredded chicken, spinach, and sugared almonds in large bowl. Chill in refrigerator or serve warm.

Sugared Almonds:
Melt 3 T butter in pan on med-low heat. Add 1/4 c. sugar and toss until bubbly; add 1 cup almonds and toss until toasted 3-5 minutes. Spread out to cool.

Luau Dressing:
2 T sesame seeds
2 T dried parsley
1/3 c. red wine vinegar
1/2 c. oil
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 t. salt
1/3 c. soy sauce
1/2 t. pepper or lemon pepper

Combine ingredients, whisk thoroughly. Chill. Toss with salad just before serving.

Cathy's Sugar Cookies

I got this from Cathy Twitchell's blog. They really are the best home made sugar cookies I've ever had.

Ingredients:
1 c. butter
1 1/3 c. powdered sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 1/2 t. almond extract
1 t. vanilla
1 t. salt
2 1/2 c. sifted flour

Directions:
Cream butter and sugar. Blend in all other ingredients. Chill in refrigerator until firm. Roll to 1/3" thick on well floured surface. Cut with cookie cutters. Grease cookie sheets. Bake at 375 for 7-10 min. Don't let them get brown.

About this Blog

Rule #1: You can only post AMAZING recipes. Nothing "so-so" allowed.

I think that's all the rules.

Before you post a recipe, please be sure to add the "labels for this post" in the little box on the bottom right of the "compose" post box. Labels can be anything from "chicken" to "breakfast" to "under 30 minutes" to "crockpot" and you can definitely do more than one label per recipe. That way we'll have an easy to access index of sorts.

I'm excited to see what this will become!