Pumpkins at Davis Ranch

Orange Kabochas at Davis Ranch 

It's always fun going to the Big Crush in Amador county (The Big Crush)  because, in addition to visiting our favorite wineries at harvest-time, we get to stop at Davis Ranch Produce stand, just East of Sacramento. This is the big daddy of all farm stands and because grapes are crushed in October, we also get to see the astounding number of pumpkins the ranch displays in preparation for their Halloween Harvest festival. Here are some of the unusual varieties.

We Be Little pumpkins above, and Hubbard and Fairy Tale below

                                                                                              

Gooseneck

 Big Mack and Long Island Creme

                                                                         

Knucklehead,  Delicata, Wolf and Goosenecks

Turban, Hubbard and One Too Many

Lunch Lady, Wolf and Long Island Creme

Summit and Super Herc

Description of Summit Pumpkin
Homozygous resistance to powdery mildew. Large dark orange fruit. Good ribbing. The standard for large fruited hybrids. Handles are impressive for size, dark color and durability.










Many of the same varieties we observed at Davis Ranch were artfully displayed at CUESA'S annual Sunday Night Supper event upstairs at the Ferry Building, catered by Paula Le Duc this October.

                                                                                                                                               Photo courtesy of Marissa Rodriguez

                Enough ogling: let's smash those bad boys and eat  PUMPKIN BREAD!

Jenny's pumpkin bread with chocolate chips

This excellent pumpkin bread is a specialty of my friend Jenny Offenbach. It was her mother's recipe and she generously bakes it and gives small loaves to her co-workers at holiday time. The chocolate chips are optional, but I recommend the addition of some Scharffen Berger bittersweet baking chunks.

Mom's Pumpkin Bread                              
1/2 cup oil                                1 2/3 cups sifted flour
1 cup canned pumpkin              1 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs                                     1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/3 cup milk                             1 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 cup sugar                        1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350.
Combine oil, eggs, milk and pumpkin. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Gradually beat into wet mixture. Pour into greased loaf pans and bake
at 350 for 1 hour or until done. (Take out of oven before bread is fully cooked, so that a tooth pick
has some mixture on it when inserted.

Servings: 2 medium loaves