Holiday fun for the whole family

I'm leaving for the airport soon to join my wandering big bro in Portland, where the streets are paved with cleanliness, but I wanted to leave you with some fun things to do when you need a break from eating today.

These are also excellent tactics for avoiding awkward and/or annoying conversations with relatives and random holiday guests you don't really know, but have to be nice to because they're friends of your Aunt Mavis or whatever.

Ahem. Here we go.

Tactic #1: Bake pumpkin bread. It's squishy, it's yummy, it's easy to make. You know you want some. This recipe is from Claire's Corner Copia Cookbook, respectfully tweaked here and there by the BCB.

2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup soybean or vegetable oil
1 cup fresh or canned pureed pumpkin
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 cups unbleached flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (or nutmeg)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1/4 cup raisins (optional)

Preheat the over to 375 degrees. Combine the eggs, sugar, oil, pumpkin, and buttermilk in a bowl. Beat to mix well using a hand mixer or whisk. (Whisks rule!) In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, ginger, cloves/nutmeg, and cinnamon. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry all at once and mix with a spoon just to combine. Don't beat the batter, or you will have a tough bread. Gently stir in the walnuts and raisins, if you like that sort of thing.

Grease and flour a 9x5-inch loaf pan. Pour the batter into the pan. Bake on the center rack of the oven for about 1.25 hours, or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from the over and let stand for 5 minutes. Turn the bread out of the pan to cool. Have a slice. Then another. Hell, eat the whole thing. With gusto! And maybe some cream cheese if frosting is a must for you.

Tactic #2: Waste a few hours playing with this fantastic Swedish website. I'm almost at a loss for words to explain how great it is. Type in anything you want, and a random computer somewhere in Sweden will sing the words back to you using pieces of popular songs. This is so rad. Trust me. You may never work again.

Happy Thanksgiving! I'll be back in a few days.