Luckily, this recipe makes two loaves. A good thing when you have lots of opinionated palates in the house. One pumpkin bread loaf stayed plain as the plain blue sky and the other pumpkin bread was chock full of golden raisins and walnuts (I personally would not be opposed to studding pumpkin bread with dark chunks of chocolate. I am just sayin.')

I hadn't made pumpkin bread in quite some time, but as I push to cook and bake seasonally, it means after a visit to my front porch (where I store winter squashes) I step into the kitchen with a pumpkin larger than my head---and meal upon meal of opportunity. For over a week I was contemplating pumpkin this and that, making soup, risotto and curry to pull pumpkin into every meal. And no pumpkin should be cheated off the runway of sweet baked goods.

My favorite visual---besides large hunks of pumpkin loitering my counters---is hacking up a large pumpkin with a cleaver. You almost want to say to any onlooker-willing-to-listen: don't try this at home. And yet: there I was, trying it at home.

Pumpkin Bread Recipe with Raisinshats off to this worthy recipe adapted Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook

3 cups flour 2 tsp baking powder2 tsp baking soda 2 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp nutmeg 1/4 tsp allspice 1/4 tsp salt 2 cups freshly cut, cooked and pureed pumpkin 1 cup sugar 1 cup brown sugar 4 eggs 1/4 cup vegetable oil 1 2/3 cup buttermilk optional, depending on family votes: chopped walnuts and raisins (I used golden raisins)

Lightly butter loaf pans. Oven to 350; combine dry ingredients in bowl. In mixing bowl combine puree and sugars and mix well. Add eggs and oil and mix well. Add approximately a third of the dry flour mix, then add half the buttermilk mix, the flour mix, the remainder of the buttermilk then the remainder of the flour mix---just to combine. Bake an hour, until wooden skewer comes out clean (no wet dough, just a crumb or two). Place on counter to cool and entice family members.