Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day 2009. I am actually prepared (mentally) this year to entertain! It helped that I had the whole day off today. A couple of store runs, a 60 minute workout, and a little lunch later, I made it to the kitchen. I have been quite busy and/or not feeling well lately, so my oven was actually building up dust.

So I broke the no baking bug. Enter: Pumpkin Bread and Snickerdoodles (next post). Kenzie, my youngest, assisted in today’s efforts. I can usually deal with one kid helping (not three) so we had a good afternoon.

To keep with Thanksgiving traditions we prepared a family favorite, pumpkin bread. I doubled the recipe and came out with three 8 x 5 ” loaves. I posted the recipe last year, but happily repost below.

Pumpkin Bread (doubled for three 8″ pans)

• 3 cups plus 4 Tbsp All Purpose Flour
• 3 cups sugar 
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 cup oil
• 4 eggs slightly beaten
• 2 Cup Canned Pumpkin
• 2/3 Cup Water

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare three 8 x 5″ loaf pans with baking spray.

Sift together dry ingredients, set aside.

Beat together eggs, oil, water and pumpkin. Make a well in dry ingredients and add wet mixture. Stir with spoon just until all ingredients are wet. Pour into greased pan(s), fill pan 2/3 full.

Bake for 1 hour or until toothpick comes out clean. (mine took exactly one hour)

Makes three 8″ loafs.

P.S. I used the leftover cinnamon sugar mixture from the snickerdoodles and sprinkled it over the top.

I hope everyone’s Thanksgiving if full of wonderful memories.