Baking out the Blues

I hope everyone had a splendid Labor Day! We definitely labored hard trying to fix our car that wouldn't start for us Sunday. But we are grateful for the generosity of some friends that toted us around town to be able to get the supplies to fix it.
Fortunately it ended up being an easy fix. The battery terminals were pretty corroded, so after cleaning them off we got the car started right up. We also proceeded to do the nasty job of taking apart the whole cooling system. As I said in a previous post, DexCool antifreeze has been doing some serious damage to cars such as ours. We drained and flushed the whole system out. Boy was that a lot of work. Buicks are really hard cars to take apart.

So, among other things it's just been one of those weeks. I really needed to bake something. I ended up baking a lasagna casserole, two loaves of zucchini bread, a whole bushel of potatoes for another casserole, pork chops for Brett, tortillas for corn chips, eggs for cob salad, and two loaves of pear bread. I got a little carried away :)
Plus, the weather has been dry and cool, so that's my excuse. Brett kindly reminded me that if we lived in a solar house I wouldn't be able to use the oven so much because it uses up too much energy.

Note to self: use the crock pot a little more often.

I'm going to end this post on a high note and give you my new recipe for pear bread. Let me tell you, I wasn't so sure about it, but I am so glad I gave it a try. It's so moist and the glaze is a perfect match. Even without the glaze it's amazing.

Glazed Pear Bread

from Yammie's Noshery

1/3 C shortening
1/3 C butter
1/2 C granulated sugar
1/2 C light brown sugar
4 eggs
1 t vanilla
3 1/2 C flour
2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
2 C pears (very ripe or canned) peeled and mashed (about 4 pears)

*I had an unripe (still green) pear and with some effort I was able to mash it up just fine

Glaze:
3/4 C powdered sugar, or more for a thicker glaze
2 1/2 T orange juice (I used lemon juice)
1 T honey

1. Cream together the shortening, butter, and sugars. 
2. Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, powder, soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
4. Stir together the shortening and flour mixtures just until combined.
5. Mix in the pears just until combined.
6. Bake in two well greased loaf pans for about 40-45 min. at 350º or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 
7. Let cool for about ten minutes. Then flip the loaves out onto a cooling rack on top of wax paper. 
8. Mix together the powdered sugar, juice, and honey. Drizzle glaze over bread.

Ta Da! 

*I brought some to work and everybody said it was amazing.