Pumpkin bread tastiness!

Well it's officially Fall in California.  This morning I went for a walk with my hubbie and Miss Roxy and it was crisp out and a little chilly!  Crazy how it can change overnight from sweltering temperatures to ugg boots and scarves.  Anyways, it felt like it was time to break out a favorite recipe of mine:  Chocolate chip pumpkin bread.  This was first introduced to me by my mother-in-law.  Every Thanksgiving, she'd bake a bunch of loaves when we visited, and then she would always send us home with a loaf (which never actually made it through the 8 hour car ride!)  The following recipe is actually from a good friend of mine.  I tweaked it a bit as hers did not include chocolate chips...and let's face it, everything is better with chocolate chips!
This recipe will make one regular loaf plus 5 mini loaves...the perfect amount if you want some for yourself, and then 5 little gifts for friends or coworkers.

Time Required:  30-50 minutes
Serves:  3 regular loaves or 48 mini muffins or 5 mini loaves and 1 regular loaf
Preheat oven @ 350 degrees

Grease and flour loaf pans
In a large bowl, mix until well blended:
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
4 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

2/3 cup water

2 cups white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

In a separate bowl, whisk together:
3 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. ground cloves (I leave this out...not a big clove fan)
1/2 tsp. ground ginger

Stir dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended.
Mix in 1 (12 ounce bag) chocolate chips...I usually add about a 1/4 of a bag more!

Topping:  Blend 1/2 stick room temperature butter
1/2 cup brown sugar

Pour pumpkin batter into pans.  Drizzle with topping.

Bake:
3 loaves: 50 minutes
Mini muffins: 11-12 minutes

Mini loaves: 30 minutes

* Cooking times vary.  Test doneness with toothpicks!  Insert toothpick into center of loaf.  If it comes out clean, it's done!

*The "boo appetit" tag was easy to make.  Cut two different pieces of printed paper.  (2"x3" and 2 1/2" x 3 1/2").  Stamp "Boo" on smaller piece and emboss with silver or black embossing powder.  (I used the color marcasite by Stampendous.)  Print "appetit" with fine marker.  Affix smaller piece onto larger with gluestick.  Use a glue dot to stick ghost embellie (this one is from ghost fabric trim) and tie onto package with black eyelash yarn!  Boo-tiful:)

Cinco de Mayo

We had a low budget cinco de drinko this year. We made our own guacamole, our own chicken tortilla dip (technically, Fresh and Easy made chicken tortilla soup and I added a lot of cheese to make it chicken tortilla dip!), our own enchiladas verdes dinner and our own margaritas. We listened to the Gipsy Kings and then watched American Idol. Not what you would call an exciting evening but hey, we're not youngins anymore:)

All in all, the result was the same as if we had gone out: I drank 1/8th of my margarita and felt buzzed and my hubby had to finish it for me. We both ate too much and then didn't have any energy to do anything but lay on the couch and rub our full bellies!!!