Eight Things Meme

Susan tagged me for this meme. Thanks, Susan! You continue to be an inspiration to me. I have the choice of using her prompts or creating my own. I feel more random today...so these prompts are my own.
1. Today...has not gone as I expected it would go, so far. I had planned to take one car in to the garage but this morning the other car wouldn't start. So it got to go to the garage instead, and luckily my carpool partner got the kids to school. I had planned to go work out at the gym but I had a headache after getting back from dealing with the car so instead I had a big slice of homemade chocolate cake and a cup of decaf vanilla chai tea. Sometimes you just have to change your plans.
2. Yesterday...I worked to make a fancy dinner for my husband's birthday. The only think he told me he wanted was a plate of Serrano ham, which we had as our appetizer. I made lamb chops, polenta, asparagus with olive oil, and the chocolate cake. He loved it. But even better than that, I think, was that he got to watch part of the Barcelona-Celtic soccer game with the boys on TV before dinner. And that Barça won.
3. In the future...I would like to take more risks. Not try to plan everything out. Keep trying new things and accept what comes that I didn't expect. Do the same with my sons.
4. I notice...that there are tiny green threads in my raised bed. I have to restrain myself from popping out there every few hours to see if they are any bigger. At the same time, a seed from this blog seems to have sprouted. Someone I know liked my writing here and asked me to do some editing for them. What a great feeling!
5. I remember...when I was a teenager I resented any confidence my mom wrangled out of me because I felt she would just try to use it to get more information and I wanted to keep everything about me secret, at least from her. Now I know she just wanted to be close to me.
6. I wish...I could find a way to be close to my teenager without intruding on his private space.
7. I don't want...all the birds to get my radishes and chervil before they are an inch high! There are little inch-deep holes in my raised bed that look like someone pushed a stick into the earth--or, rather, a beak. So I put up the bird netting over the anti-cat sticks. What's next? Snails?
8. I want...to be productive , not frenzied. To be loving, not prying. To protect and nuture, not destroy. It's easy to crush fragile seedlings before they've even grown their second set of leaves.

I tag Gail, Marmee, Violeta, and Caroline. You can use my prompts, or Susan's, or your own!

Everyone's Pumpkin Bread

This is the other thing I was cooking today. I bought all the ingredients for this last week to make and bring to our middle school music fundraising carwash bake sale, but didn't manage to make it until today. I enjoy thinking about this bread almost as much as I do making it, giving it away, and eating it. The recipe is my mom's. She makes it every October and gives a loaf to her friend Liz for her birthday. I hear that Liz starts salivating for her pumpkin bread on Oct. 1. The recipe makes three loaves so I believe my mom keeps one and freezes the other. It freezes well. She used to make it a lot when we were kids and I loved having it in my lunch. I loved how it got even moister and greasier wrapped in plastic in my lunch box. I really savored every bite.

I made pumpkin bread for one of our parent coop nursery school potlucks and it was such a hit I ended up giving away the recipe to a lot of people. One friend of mine serves it for dessert with dulce de leche ice cream--a great innovation. Another now runs her own nursery school and she makes the pumpkin bread every fall and gives it away to her families. She adds chocolate chips (uck to me, but...) and her son demands it as his birthday cake every year. This fall she called me in a panic.
"We remodeled our house...I lost my recipe box...I can't find the pumpkin bread recipe!!!" she said breathlessly. I emailed it to her again. Here's the recipe. I decreased the sugar from my mom's original 4 cups because I prefer it less sweet.

Betsy’s Pumpkin Bread
Makes 3 loaves.

Ingredients
3-1/2 cups sugar
¾ tsp. baking powder
3 tsp. baking soda
2-1/4 tsp. salt
1-1/2 tsp. each ground cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg
5 cups unbleached flour
6 eggs
1-1/2 cups canola oil
3-1/2 cups cooked, pureed pumpkin

Line 3 loaf pans with waxed paper. Combine all ingredients and mix just until blended. Bake at 300 degrees F for 1-1/2 hours. Cool for 10 minutes in pan, then turn out onto a rack to cool to room temperature. Wrap in plastic to keep fresh.

You can also make smaller gift loaves and muffins, even a round cake. How will you make yours?