Pumpkin Cornbread

Pumpkin Cornbread (courtesy of Cathy Fisher).

This cornbread is delicious when you're serving soup, salads, or stews. This bread has no added salt, oil, sugar, dairy, or gluten. It's sweetened a bit with dates.

Make sure to buy (or make) plain pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie mix. I bought a can at Aldi! If you have cornmeal already but it's for polenta or is a "medium grind", add it with the oats when you process the oats into flour so that the cornbread doesn't get gritty.

Ingredients:

1 cup water

5 or 6 Medjool dates, pitted

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

1 1/2 cups yellow cornmeal

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree

Optional: 1/2 cup walnuts

Optional: 1/2 cups corn kernels (I use frozen corn that I put into a strainer and run warm water over the corn until it's not frozen any longer)

Directions:

Put the dates and water into a small bowl and set it aside for at least 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8x8-inch baking pan with parchment paper.
Put the oats into the blender (and the cornmeal if it's a medium grind or polenta grind). Blend into a flour. Pour the flour into a large bowl. Add the cornmeal, baking powder, and baking soda. Whisk it together.
Pour the water and dates into the blender and blend on high speed until it's smooth. Add the pumpkin puree; blend until it's all incorporated. Pour this mixture into the large bowl with the dry ingredients. Stir with a large spoon until it's all mixed. Optionally, stir in the walnuts and/or the corn kernels.
Spread the batter into the pan and smooth out the top. Bake it for 38 to 40 minutes. When the cornbread is done, it will have a few cracks on the top and the edges will be light brown.
Set the pan on a cooling rack to cool. You can serve it warm or at room temperature.