Susan Writes

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread and a cup of coffee taste good these cool fall mornings. That’s black coffee, not flavored, and I learned to like the bread when I ate it with my Grands at the Great Harvest Bread Company last fall.  They called it The Pumpkin Bread Store and were disappointed when Cookeville’s Great Harvest closed this spring.

            Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread took me out of my food comfort zone because I’ve always liked plain pumpkin, as in pie.  I’m almost appalled by the many foods and drinks flavored with pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice. 

Nothing tastes better than pumpkin pie, topped with real whipped cream, after a Thanksgiving Day turkey and cornbread dressing feast.  Even now, I look forward to baking a pie using Mom’s recipe, which she tore from a Libby’s Pumpkin can label.  And that recipe doesn’t include pumpkin pie spice. 

Libby’s recipe was probably created before the spice was bottled, which proves to me that pumpkin pie spice is totally unnecessary. It’s simply a concoction of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, and depending on someone’s tolerance of allspice and ginger, one or both can be added.

When the calendar turned to September, store shelves magically filled with all things pumpkin and coffee shops promoted pumpkin lattes.  A Facebook friend shared pictures of her fall shopping haul, and while all items weren’t pumpkin flavored, many were. Pumpkin Spice Trail Mix.  Pumpkin Spice Coconut Granola.  Pumpkin Chipotle. Pumpkin breakfast bars. Pumpkin yogurt.  Pumpkin spice craft soda.  

I can imagine most of those tastes, but pumpkin chipotle?  Smoked dried jalapeno chili peppers flavored pumpkin?

As I shopped for groceries recently, I noticed several favorite year-around foods were featured on the end caps to entice impulse shoppers, except these items were the flavor of fall.  Honey Nut Cheerios make a good snack eaten hand to mouth or with milk for a meal, but I won’t buy Pumpkin Cheerios.

Chocolate marshmallows make double chocolate s’mores; I’m almost certain that pumpkin marshmallows would taint milk chocolate Hershey bars. I really like the sweet and salty combination of yogurt covered pretzels; I’m not sure about pumpkin yogurt pretzels.

I’ve tried pumpkin recipes.  When I ate a warm pumpkin sugar cookie, I wished I’d baked chocolate chip cookies, and pumpkin cheesecake bars are a poor substitute for pumpkin pie.

After Great Harvest closed, Daughter began baking Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread and it’s really good, but on a recent trip I spotted a Great Harvest Bakery and packed a loaf of my Grands’ favorite bread in my carry-on flight bag. I had to do some fast talking to explain to the airport security officer that my Tennessee Grands would be so disappointed to not get pumpkin bread from the real Pumpkin Bread Store. 

When my Grands and I ate the bread, I decided it’s best eaten with people you love.  And who knows, maybe pumpkin yogurt pretzels are worth trying.  Just don’t mess with my coffee.

Filed under: Food | Tagged: pumpkin |