It's the time of year when you feel like you should be doing something with pumpkin. This combined with the fact that I suddenly have a teenager in the house who is getting up ten minutes before she has to leave for school and thinking she can just rush out the door with nothing in her stomach and... (Hand over mouth).....MOM?!
Anyway, I put the two problems together and searched out a pumpkin breakfast muffin recipe. I found this one from Dr. Oz's site and I have made them four times in four weeks. Right now I have a double batch going, they're that popular.
These have no end of good things in them, and you can tweak the recipe to get as many good things in there as you like. The original recipe, doubled, calls for 2 cups whole wheat flour and 1 cup of white flour. But you can make this into 3 cups of virtually any kind of grains or flours. I mean literally. Anything. You might not have the fluffiest, most domed muffins, but I've never made the recipe with the same flour twice and it always works and tastes great. So tonight, for example, my 3 cups are made of:
1/2 cup flaxseed meal
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup white flour
1 1/2 cups wheat flour
Dr. Oz's recipe also called for olive oil; I subbed coconut oil because I am an addict. I also used regular sugar instead of the agave because agave isn't something I keep around. You can tweak this to your heart's content depending on your religious beliefs.
I also added dark chocolate chips because duh.
Pumpkin Chia Muffins
(Single batch recipe below, makes 12 muffins plus an annoying dollop of batter you don't know what to do with)
- 1 tbsp chia seeds
- 1 cup whole-wheat or whole-grain flour plus 1/2 cup white flour (OR 1 1/2 cups of whatever flours/meals you like)
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger (ginger! not the garlic powder! don't ask!)
- 2 tsp baking soda (when using almond meal and flaxseed meal, I throw another 1/2 tsp in)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 can (16-oz) pumpkin
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 cup coconut oil (or olive oil, or canola)
- 1/2 cup agave nectar (or 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup sugar; I made it a scant 1/2 cup because I was using chocolate chips)
- 1 tbsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup walnuts or pecans (Optional)
- 3/4 cup dark chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350
Combine dry ingredients in one bowl, wet ingredients in another.
Combine dry and wet and stir in chocolate chips.
Bake 25-30 minutes until tester comes out dry.
Serve as they're flying out the door to the bus stop.
