In honor of Mother’s Day, Kris and I decided to spend the weekend enjoying ourselves and the family! Kris got to spend time with her new baby grandson, and I enjoyed my two boys being home and acting their usual crazy selves! So, we decided it would be fun to go with a Throwback post – albeit it’s a mash up of two different posts, but it IS about a couple recipes our mom’s made, that for us, are the gold standard in these treats we love!

Hope you enjoy!

 

from Kris B.

Despite my admitted coffee addiction, I am not one of those who spends nine months of the year waiting for Starbuck’s to begin making pumpkin spice lattes, but I do spend a good part of the year waiting for fall so that I can make pumpkin bread.  There really is no reason that pumpkin bread can’t be, as Cookie Monster says, “an anytime food,” but I have always thought of it as a fall food, a fall food that I absolutely love. In fact, I prefer pumpkin bread to pumpkin pie ALWAYS.

This recipe is one that was passed down to me from my mother.  Perhaps I still associate pumpkin bread with fall because that is when my mom always made it.  When I was in college, she always sent me a loaf in my midterm care package. I have no idea where my mom originally found the recipe.  She gave it to me on a handwritten recipe card with no reference as to where she had gotten it. In all these years, I have never even tried another pumpkin bread recipe.  To my taste, this one is perfection. And honestly, I have never tasted any pumpkin bread anywhere that beats this one. I’m sure there are some tweaks that could be made, perhaps to make it a bit healthier, but I don’t think I am going to worry about that.  Some things deserve to stay the same; for me, this recipe is one of them.

INGREDIENTS

1 2/3 Cups sifted all-purpose flour

1 1/2 Cups sugar

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 Cup vegetable oil

1/2 Cup water

1 Cup pumpkin

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Grease a loaf pan and set aside.

Sift flour into a large bowl.

Mix in the remainder of the dry ingredients – sugar, salt,  baking soda, baking powder, and spices.

In a medium sized bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients, oil, water, pumpkin and eggs.

Add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients stirring until they are mixed well.  Add the vanilla.

Pour the batter into the greased loaf pan or pan(s) of choice. This recipe works well in mini loaf pans or muffin tins also.  Bake for 1 1/2 hours or until knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then remove it from the pan and continue cooling on a wire rack.

I am lazy when it comes to washing dishes so it is always my goal to use as few vessels as possible when I cook.  Since this recipe uses 1/2 cup each of water and oil, it is “efficient” to measure them both into the same measuring cup!

Thanks for reading!

 

from Tracey G.

As Kris and I were getting ready for this “Friday’s” post, everything seemed to just go downhill in my camp, lol. I ended up having to take Harry to the after-hours clinic at our doctor’s office due to ear pain on Thursday evening after a miserable Wednesday night, and come to find out he’s got an ugly ear infection. So, the past few nights since, oh, Wednesday, have involved very little sleep, and every time I get something on a roll after he’s asleep, he’s awake and my work gets put on hold, lol. I am hoping that a couple full days on the antibiotic will start to see some improvement! Poor kid is miserable and the first day of school is Tuesday. What a way to start the year, the doctor wanted to see him back next Friday, so the first week of school he’s either going to be late on that day or absent depending on the efficiency at the doctor’s office, lol.

So, that’s my reason why Food Friday became Food Saturday for me as well!! 😉

Labor Day weekend reminds me of a special dessert my mom would make, not that she made it, every Labor Day weekend, because I couldn’t even tell you if she ever made it on a Labor Day weekend, lol – but simply because it did. Her birthday was just August 22, so I guess she’s been on my mind a lot. But anyway, the dessert would be the Stern Reunion Blueberry Torte, my mom was a Stern so was from her side of the family. I didn’t call it that because to me, and one of my best friends who I think loved it more than me (if that was possible!), it was simply known as my Mom’s Blueberry Torte, lol. The funny thing is, I’ve never made it. My friend requested it as a wedding gift, lol, a pan of it all for her that she didn’t have share – she  may have shared with her new husband, lol, I’ll have to ask her one of these days, but she’s made it through the years, and I can’t believe I never have. It’s not like I didn’t have the recipe, lol. I couldn’t even tell you the last time I’d even had it… So I knew it was time to make it.

As I was making it, I had to laugh – mom only made it for special occasions, holidays and whatnot, so I always thought it was labor intensive so therefore, saved for certain occasions – like the pecan tarts she’d make every Christmas, they were special because that was the only time of year we had them, lol. But the torte was REALLY simple to put together and fast, lol. I was reminded of the old Rice Krispies Treat commercial where the mom dusted herself with flour before she took the treats, wearily, out to the family as if it had been one of the most difficult things to produce, yet she and we knew it was one of the easiest. 😉 I knew mom more as a “cooker” instead of dessert maker/baker kind of person, so whatever she did make as a dessert, I guess would be her signature items, lol, like Blueberry Torte or Pecan Tarts. This truly was one of the things I grew up on, she’d made it ever since I was a kid, and eating it was a total blast from the past – and in such a good and yummy way!

The crust ingredients are: flour, brown sugar, vegetable shortening, butter and chopped walnuts.

Mix all of the crust ingredients together and press into the bottom of a 9×13″ pan. Then bake at 400° F for 15 minutes or until lightly browned. While that’s cooling start getting your filling ingredients ready…

The filling ingredients are pretty simple too – the filling part is made up of: vanilla, powdered sugar, cream cheese and Dream Whip prepared per package directions. The “topping” is a can of blueberry pie filling. It’s about 2 cups – so if you wanted to make your own with fresh blueberries sugar, water and cornstarch kind of thing that’s the least amount you’d need. I do have a note in my recipe book to use 1-2 cans of filling, so the amount is another one of those things that can be played with to suit your taste 😉 Next time I make it, I am going to use more, likely 2 cans or make my own blueberry filling/sauce. Oh heck, for that matter, you could use whatever pie filling captures your fancy, I would like to try lemon and also make my own fresh peach filling to try on top…or even a raspberry….I guess I could keep going, lol. But you all get the idea. 😉

With a mixer (either handheld or stationary) combine the powdered sugar, cream cheese and vanilla until smooth. Then, prepare the Dream Whip according to the package directions. If you have the space, you can make the whipped topping ahead of time and refrigerate it until you’re ready to use it.

Fold the whipped topping gently into the cream cheese mixture until thoroughly combined…

…then spread the cream cheese filling, evenly, over the cooled crust. Now, at this point, had I read my little notes on the recipe, I would have read the suggestion from Mom that you can refrigerate the torte at this point for awhile – it would have made the pie filling easier to spread over the top. I battled the cream part wanting to be pulled into the pretty pie filling, lol, and that could have been avoided. 😉

I put the pie filling on in even lines/spoonfuls so that it can then be spread a little easier to cover the top. After you do that, all that’s left is to refrigerate at least 2 hours before you serve. Now, again, here’s a note on that – one that’s not in my book but that I discovered while eating this the same day it’s made – the crust is rather hard, lol. But, the next day, it was perfect, easy to cut and easy to eat. Next time I’ll remember that – and it even just tasted better, lol. 😉

Mom’s Blueberry Torte (a.k.a The Stern Reunion Blueberry Torte)

Crust:

2 c flour

1/2 c brown sugar, firmly packed

1/2 c vegetable shortening

1/2 c butter, softened

1 c chopped walnuts

Mix together the ingredients. Press into the bottom of a 9×13″ baking pan and bake at 400° F for 15 minutes or until lightly browned.

Filling and Topping:

2 pkg Dream Whip whipped topping mix

1 8 oz. pkg cream cheese, softened

1 c powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1-2 cans blueberry pie filling

Mix together the cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla until well blended and smooth. Prepare the Dream Whip packages according to package directions. Fold into cream cheese mixture until well blended. Spread over top of cooled crust. Top with pie filling. Refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving.

(you can refrigerate the crust/cream cheese mixture layer before spreading on the pie filling, makes it easier to spread!)