Cardamom Carrot Bread

Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.
-Jim Davis, Garfield

Fall is my favorite season. Year around, there are great things about each season, great foods that make you feel alive in all sorts of weather, but nothing compares to the comfort food that accompanies the cool weather, changing leaves, and brisk breezes. It is time for soups and casseroles, heavy breads and canned goods.

I love to sit on my front porch, reading a book or simply looking up at the blue sky hovering over the yellow and green side of Missoula's Mount Sentinal, sipping of a cup of coffee and munching a piece of cardamom carrot bread. The flavors mix with the scents in the air and I feel it... it is fall.

Cardamom Carrot Bread
(makes 2 loaves)

2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups cooking oil
2 eggs
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
2 cup carrots (grated fine)

Shred the carrots (I used my food processor... no more grated knuckles!)

Cream the sugar and cooking oil in a medium bowl. Mix. Add the egg.

.

Stir the flour and soda in a smaller bowl.

Then, add the cardamom, cinnamon, and salt.

Pour the dry ingredients in with the sugar mixture.

Add the vanilla and stir.

Fold in the carrots.

Pour the batter into a lightly greased bread loaf pan.

Bake at 325 degrees F for 1 1/2 hour or until lightly brown and a toothpick comes out clean.