Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

With the upcoming holiday season, I keep coming across recipes for pumpkin and chocolate, which seems like an odd combination to me. (I'm not sure why I would think that anything is odd with chocolate though!) I decided to try baking a Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread. I found this recipe from Magnanimity's blog (http://5purposedriven.wordpress.com/2006/10/20/1051/). She says it can make bread or cookies but I found the consistency too watery to form cookies. I also added more chocolate chips than the recipe called for. The bread was excellent! I plan to try more recipes with this combination.

Makes 3 (9×5″) loaves

3 cups sugar
1 T ground nutmeg
1–15 oz can pumpkin puree
2 tsp baking soda
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup water
1 cup miniature semi-sweet chips (I used regular semi-sweet chips and added about 1.5 cups)
4 eggs
1/2 cup walnuts, optional (I omitted)
3 1/2 cups flour
1 T ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour three 9×5″ loaf pans. (I only made one loaf and cut the recipe in thirds.) Combine all dry ingredients in large bowl; set aside. In large bowl, combine sugar, pumpkin, oil,water, and eggs. Beat until smooth. Blend in the dry ingredients. Fold in chocolate chips, and nuts (I omitted, not a fan of nuts in bread), if desired. Pour batter into prepared loaf pans. Bake for 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire racks before removing from pans.
*Note: This bread should freeze well, half of it is actually in my freezer and I'll let you know how that is after Thanksgiving!