Pumpkin Zucchini Bread

One of my favorite things about this time of the year is all the delicious desserts that can be made with pumpkin. I get excited for my aunt's home-made pumpkin pie a few months in advance of Thanksgiving.
I've never done any pumpkin baking before so I decided to give it a try. I figured an easy way to start would be this recipe of a variation on zucchini bread--something that I know to be fairly fool-proof.

I came upon this recipe in a "special bonus section" of a cooking magazine that I subscribe to, Taste of Home, which is published by Reiman Publications (http://www.reimanpub.com).

Ingredients:
-3 eggs, lightly beaten
-2 cups sugar
-1 cup canned pumpkin
-1 cup melted butter
-1 tbsp vanilla extract
-3 cups all-purpose flour
-1 tsp baking soda
-1/2 tsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp salt
-1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
-1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
-1/2 tsp ground cloves
-1 cup shredded zucchini
-1 cup chopped walnuts

The recipe called for canned pumpkin so that is what I used. I'm sure you could substitute with fresh pumpkin as well. After reading Jackie's post on how to break down a pumpkin I may use fresh next time.
When I shredded my zucchini I used a fairly fine sized grater. This resulted in loss of a lot of water which I removed from the zucchini before I added it to the batter. My bread turned out a little drier than I would have liked so I'd recommend letting some of the moisture from the zucchini go into the batter.

Making the bread:
-Preheat oven to 350 and grease and flour 2 9in x 5in x 3in loaf pans
-Combine eggs and sugar in a mixing bowl
-To this, add the other wet ingredients (pumpkin, butter, and vanilla)
-In a separate bowl, mix all dry ingredients (baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, zucchini)
-Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well
-Mix in zucchini and walnuts
-Pour into the 2 pans and bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the loaves come out clean.

For my first test run, I followed the recipe exactly in terms of sugar and butter. I'd expect that it would turn out well using margarine and sugar substitute (such as the baking Splenda) as well. I'm thinking of making them again in the future with the margarine and Splenda.

I omitted the walnuts as I don't like walnuts.

This nutritional information is for 1/12 of one loaf made with butter and sugar and without walnuts.

The bread turned out great and was delicious! It made far more than my boyfriend and I could eat, so I kept one loaf for ourselves and brought one into lab for other people to snack on. We'd finished our loaf in about a week but I'd imagine that you could freeze one loaf or part of a loaf if it will be longer than that before it is finished.