Spiced Pumpkin Bread and Potato Mushroom stew

It was another of those weekdays, when I was done with my work, little one was asleep and S was working late.
I wanted to make something different, something interesting - the boredom of seeing the same vegetables was getting to me. I didnt have the most interesting vegetables, other than mushrooms, (my vegetable vendor always gives me this - i seem to be his only customer for mushrooms in this area) and I had decided I will not go out buying any more, because I was well stocked, but I didnt want to cook anything that I had made earlier..

Scanned the 'fridge, surfed for recipes, rummaged through recipe books, looked thru my grocery, but still couldnt make up my mind about what I wanted.
After spending close to an hour on this fairly mindless searching, I decided on making the pumpkin bread, but i knew i didnt want it sweet.
I had to use up the mushrooms too, before they got blackish in colour - i like them really clean and as white as possible.

Tweaked around with the recipe i saw here and came up with this really nice spicy pumpkin bread. The fennel seeds and mustard gave it a really nice taste



Made a mushroom and potato stew to go with it - i had always made the Indian 'ishtew' with coconut milk, but wanted this one to be really different - the dinner turned out really good - i was terribly apprehensive about my 'different' menu, but S and I enjoyed it so much, that I have promised myself to make these 'different' menus more often




What you need -

Spiced Pumpkin bread

1 cup wheat flour
1 cup oatmeal (I used quick cooking oats and powdered it in the blender)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups pumpkin pieces
1/2 cup olive oil
2 eggs beaten
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon powdered cinnamon
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp mustard powder
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

What you do with it -

Make a purée of the pumpkin. I scooped out the seeds and the peeled the skin and microwaved the pumpkin pieces in 1/2 cup water for about 7 mins and then mashed the pieces with a fork
Mix, in a large bowl, the wheat flour, oatmeal, salt and baking soda
Preheat oven to 180 deg C
Mix the pumpkin, oil, eggs, 1/4 cup of water, cinnamon powder, mustard powder
Combine with the dry ingredients (Do not beat / blend)
Stir in the nuts and fennel seeds
Pour into a greased loaf pan
Bake 30-3 minutes until a thin skewer poked in the very center of the loaf comes out clean
Turn out of the pan and let cool on a rack

Mushroom Potato Stew

What you need -

15-20 mushrooms
2-3 medium potatoes
1 onion
4-5 pods garlic
1 stick cinnamon
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp mixed herbs
1/2 tsp crushed pepper
1/2 tsp red chilli flakes
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup stock / water
1/2 tsp salt

What you do with it -

Wash the mushrooms well and chop in 4 quarters
Peel and chop potatoes into cubes
Chop onion into big chunks and chop garlic lengthwise
In a deep pan, heat the olive oil
Add cinnamon, onions, garlic and stir till onions are translucent
Add mushrooms, potato cubes, salt and pepper
Fry till the mushrooms are done, then add water or stock and cover till potatoes are cooked
If its too watery, mix a tsp of flour / cornflour in water and add to this to thicken
Add the oregano and mixed herbs and the chilli flakes
Adjust salt if needed

Sending the spiced pumpkin bread recipe to BBD#18-Quick Breads hosted by Mansi of the Fun and Food Blog