Thanksgiving Favorites

First off, I am very sorry to say that I totally forgot to take pictures for this recipe and post, so sorry!  However, I will be making this recipe again soon and I will make sure to take pictures and post then.

My favorite foods to eat at Thanksgiving are my mom's mashed potatoes and Yaya's(my grandmother) pumpkin bread.  Yaya is getting old and lives in a retirement community now.  She has a very small kitchen and does not bake much anymore.  So she isn't making the pumpkin bread any more, my favorite part of Thanksgiving.  Since I have a pretty nice kitchen, I decided to make the pumpkin bread this year.  I called up Yaya and got the recipe from her.  I tried to do it exactly like she makes it and I think I made her day by asking for her recipe.  Yaya has been making this bread since my dad was little.  She said she got the recipe from her neighbor when they lived down at the shore.

Ingredients: 
2 cups pumpkin
1 cup salad oil ("Yaya, what the heck is salad oil?"  "oh you know, canola oil")
3 cups white sugar
4 eggs
3 1/4 cups all purpose unbleached flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt (Yaya uses more like 1 1/2 teaspoons)
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Start Cooking:
1.  Grease and flour 2 loaf pans.  One batch will make 2 loafs.  Yaya uses Crisco to grease the pans.  DO NOT use the spray stuff.  Pre heat oven to 350.
2. In a large bowl, beat the eggs.  Mix in the sugar, pumpkin, and salad oil.  Then all remaining ingredients and mix well.
3.  Dived the batter between the 2 loaf pans.  Bake for 1 hour.  Yaya said in her old oven, it took about 1 hour 15 minutes.  In mine it took about 1 hour 5 minutes.  Check at one hour, and cook longer if needed.  Check using the knife test.

Tips and Hints:
1.  When serving, sprinkle some powdered sugar onto of the bread.  Looks nice and tastes yummy.
2.  That's really it.  The recipe is super simple, but super yummy.

Enjoy!  

Nutella Hot Chocolate

This is probably the easiest recipe ever, and the yummiest recipe ever.  I am not a big fan of milk, I hardly ever drink it.  But they say I'm supposed to drink lots of it for the calcium and all that good stuff.  Nevertheless, I never drink milk.  But I LOVE hot chocolate.  I just discovered a recipe for hot chocolate made with Nutella.  I found the recipe on Pinterest, and I'm not really sure where it started.
All you need is 1 cup of milk and 2 spoonfuls of Nutella

so simple, just 2 ingredients 

In a small sauce pan, add the milk and Nutella.  Cook on medium heat, stirring with a whisk, until hot and the Nutella is incorporated throughout the milk.  

Enjoy!