THE GREAT CRANBERRY PUMPKIN ...

"Have you come to sing pumpkin carols?" -It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

THE GREAT CANBERRY PUMPKIN LOAF ( 1990-2025)

(Double recipe makes 2 loaf pans, or 11 mini loaf pans. Adjust time accordingly.) The orange juice is optional. Use water instead. Leave out the pureed orange. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Never fails. Freezes well. If there's any of it left to freeze...

FIRST GROUP: 1/3 cup plant butter,1 cup sugar,2 eggs,1 cup canned pumpkin (half of a large tin if you are doubling), 1/3 cup orange juice concentrate or water

1 grated and pureed orange, and scrape another orange for fresh peel.

Beat all FIRST GROUP ingredients, then add ground up orange and peel,  if you are using oranges. 

2ND GROUP: 2 cups  flour,1 tsp baking soda,½ tsp baking powder, Pinch salt, ½ tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp cloves

Add all dry and combine together ( fold)..do not beat, or you will be sorry…gets tough that way.

3RD GROUP:½ cup chopped nuts ( I use pecans or walnuts) If you don't want nuts add extra cranberries and raisins, OR even a handful of chocolate chips. Go crazy. More fun that way.

1 cup dried cranberries/raisins mixed ( I toss in a bit more for good measure)

Plop into pans. The mini loaf pans are great. I used two regular loaf pans, greased and lined with parchment paper. 

"I don't see how a pumpkin patch can be more sincere than this one..." -It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Bake in 350 oven for 1 hour with larger loaf pans. Bake for about 30 minutes with mini pans. 

Just be sure to check after 20 minutes, with a sharp knife plunged into the centre to test for doneness. If you use a toothpick, you might lose it in the vastness of the loaf...so I use a steak knife. Serve with anything and everything.

Years ago, when we lived in Petawawa,1990, most of the military wives made pumpkin pie, soup, pudding ( yuck). I decided to be really clever and make pumpkin puree from scratch. Oh yeah, that was a good idea. I got the axe from  the basement, and proceeded to hack that huge pumpkin outside. Chopped it up into huge hunks. 

I shoved the hacked up pumpkin (without peeling the skin) , into a stock pot ,and boiled it till it burnt in bottom of the pan. Oh well. I just added water, from time to time, and let it bubble away,for the rest of the day. The pot was too heavy and stringy pumpkin sloshed around. I forgot to take out the seeds as well. So there were seeds drowning in the mess.

Next day I smashed it all up. It was stringy and tough.Oh well. I figured that's how it was supposed to be. Removed seeds. That took all morning. I didn't have a food processor or blender, so just took a potato masher and a knife till it turned into  Pumpkin snot...( hmmm, kind of ewwwww)

Rolled pastry into a pie pan. Mixed the pumpkin globs with tofu, eggs, spices.  It was my "add-tofu-to-everything" phase. 

Strings hung out of the pie shell, so I snipped them off with scissors, squished down the tofu and pumpkin ( I had managed to get some seeds and pumpkin  skin off the pieces by that time). It was a trifle liquid, so I sprinkled extra flour into the mix and stirred. I figured that would thicken it up.( Oh yeah, it was gross).Baked it a good hour and a half. It burned on top and was raw underneath. It kind of looked like stringy pumpkin pudding globs ( ewwwww yuck). Retired pumpkin pie at that point.

HOWEVER! I first tried Cranberry Pumpkin bread years ago, when I went to a violin conference  in Vancouver. The friends I went with brought three HUGE loaves of orange pumpkin bread. They carved up those loaves, slathered fragrant slices with cheese. It was delicious, dripping with cranberries, raisins and walnuts. We sat in the green room of the Orpheum theatre, devouring pumpkin bread, till it was completely gone, and it was time to go on stage and play. Every time I make it, I remember that wonderful night where we performed Bach and Vivaldi, ate pumpkin bread, and laughed and reveled in that sweet, pungent scent of cinnamon and cloves. 

 "There he is. There he is. It's The GREAT Pumpkin!"

                                                                              -It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Photographs 2025 Printed recipe from "Company's Coming" Muffins and More  by Jean Pare. My go to, for years! I like to switch it up, especially at xmas. I add more fruit and use it as a fruitcake. 

BEARS!!

"If you go down to the woods today, you'd better go in disguise. For every bear that ever was will gather there for certain, because today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic... "-Teddy Bear Picnic Song ( excerpt)by Henry Hall

 Autumn. First one bear. Then another. Picnic time. I'm usually outside just at first light, or before, in the quiet, with the crickets and just the birds and the wind, and maybe a visiting cat or two. In the half dark, I couldn't see the big dark, quiet shape moving down the side of the house. Soft pad pad pad, over the grass. Crickets became quiet. Wind silent. Cats disappeared. Birds vanished. I went back inside the house....

Turned around at the closed door to see this right behind me. Startled. Surprised. Suddenly felt like prey. "BEAR!"   Magnificent, sleepy bear, with glistening fur. She waddled as she walked. All stuffed with apples, as she plodded across the way, parting the grass with her big paws.

Momma bear. She was stressed. Looking for a way out of our enclosed yard. She was panting hard. I figured she'd spent the night at the back of the hill, under the apple tree, gorging herself on fruit. There's a huge gate on the fence, but she was too close Just wanted to open those large doors, so she could find a way out. 

She circled, and finally dropped over the fence into the other yard. The fence shook from her weight. Big bear. The maple tree bent and cracked as she slid her torso down into the brush, with a resounding thud.

An hour later, this young bear showed up. Just outside the office window. He romped and sniffed and shoved apples in his mouth. Chewed. Slobbered. Chased birds. Climbed the cherry tree where he swatted at the leaves, and clacked his teeth, and huffed. I read that bears often huff after they've climbed a tree, or are stressed. Still couldn't get to the gate to open it.

"The little Teddy Bears are having a lovely time today. Watch them, catch them unawares, and see them picnic on their holiday..." -Teddy Bears picnic ( excerpt)

The young bear dropped down onto the ground . Looking for her. Sniffed and snuffled all through the hill. 

"Beneath the trees where nobody sees, they'll hide and seek as long as they please..." -T. B.Picnic song( excerpt)

Till he found her. A last. The other side of the fence.  She was asleep by then. You could see her big frame rising and falling, as she breathed and rolled over, her paws twitching. Yes, she was that close. Could here her sleepy sounds from the window.

What to do now? Left to his own devices, now that mom was snoring away. He ran. And ran. All around the yard. Up into the cherry tree.The ground  thumped as he ran. (I read later , black bears can run up to 48 kmh.)He sat up in the tree, swatting once more at leaves. Then charged back down to cram himself with fallen apples. Crunch. Drool. More slobbering. 

While he was busy doing that, the gate was finally opened wide, so he could find his way out. His mother slept till after 7:30 pm, then she also vanished into the dusk. We're leaving that gate open, for now, so wildlife can come and go. The two bucks discovered it, not long after the bears.

  "how thoughtful", I imagine they said ...

"They love to play and shout, they never have any cares. At 6 o'clock their mommies and daddies will take them home to bed...."-T. B. Picnic song (excerpt) 

 I knew they were here, because they rang the front doorbell. They take turns standing on the front steps, chewing at the hibiscus. So incredibly happy, when they wagged their tails, off went the motion sensor. Wag wag/Ring ring. Over and over. 

  Really funny, unless it's the wee hours of the morning. Wag wag/Ring ring.

"Bears are made of the same dust as we, and they breathe the same winds and drink of the same waters..." -John Muir

 "Cause they're tired little Teddy Bears, if you go down to the woods today, you'd better not go alone. It's safer to stay at home. For every bear that ever was, will gather there for certain because, today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic..." -T.B. Picnic song

                                    

                                 ( Chomp/Yum Yum and d'Artagnon, the visiting cat.)

Photographs 2025

JAM JAMS for Fall...

         "In the Fall, every recipe is a love letter to the season..." 

                                                                                                                         -Unknown

Fall arrives this Monday, Sept 22....Jam Jams are quietly begging me to bake them,  so they can be devoured, one by one, in the early morning with steaming coffee, or in the afternoon...if they last that long. My mother used to make these before dawn. By first light, jam was already dripping over their lightly browned crusts, coffee, boiled, on the stove. And that glassy sun of Fall streamed in through the windows.

 I made these with oat creamer ( I still had some left over from the scones!) and plant butter halved with real butter. Serve hot with tea. Or any time. You can halve the recipe, if you wish.

DRY INGREDIENTS: 4 cups flour, 2 1/2 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp baking powder, Pinch salt, 1 cup plant butter or margarine or butter...      

In large bowl combine dry ingredients. Cut in margarine or butter, or plant butter...whatever you decide to use. 

 WET INGREDIENTS: Combine 2 eggs, beaten into 1 cup oat creamer (and a tad extra) or milk, if you prefer. 

                                        

Make a well in the center. Pour wet ingredients into the well and combine quickly.

                                           

Mix all together into bowl and stir lightly to form a soft dough.

It should not be overmixed or the Jam Jams will be stiff. The less you mix the better the biscuits will become.

"Baking can be done with a few simple ingredients, so it's about simplicity and nostalgia. People are reminded of their childhood..."

                   - Paul Hollywood

Pat or roll out to ¾ inches. Cut with cookie cutter. I used a small teacup. But then I rolled them into balls. 

Place on silpat liners or greased cookie sheet. 

Make ridges with thumbprint centers as if  you were doing thumbprint cookies.

Place a dollop...a very teensy weensy dollop...of jam in the middle.

Bake at 450 for about 10 minutes. I start at 7 minute and add time as need be. 

Watch carefully, as they tend to burn if oven gets too hot. Least amount of time is best. (They should be brown and the jam bubbling.) Serve hot or reheat to serve later on.

"And all at once, summer collapsed into Fall..." - Oscar Wilde

Photographs 2025