Some Pumpkins for Halloween

I love pumpkins, however I rarely love pumpkin recipes. Today I found myself shocked to enjoy the best of both worlds, on Halloween too! At the recommendation of a friend I tried this new recipe with pumpkin. It was fabulous! Even better, they are vegetarian (and Vegan) so I was able to share them with our neighbors as a special fall treat. You MUST try them even if, like me, you do not like pumpkin. They really are wonderful!

Pumpkin Chip Muffins

1 C plain canned pumpkin

1/3 C water

1/3 C canola oil

2 T ground flax seed*

1 t vanilla

1 2/3 C whole wheat flour or 2 C all purpose flour

1 1/3 C sugar

1 t baking powder

½ t baking soda

½ t salt

½ t cinnamon

¼ t nutmeg

1/3 C chocolate chips (check to make sure there’s no milk if Vegan!!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Oil muffin tin.

Put the pumpkin, water, canola oil, ground flax seed and vanilla in a bowl and mix on high for one minute or until light in color and well blended. Set aside.

In another large mixing bowl, whisk together the ww flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Add the pumpkin mixture and mix well. Fold in the chips.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tin. Sprinkle the tops with sugar and cinnamon.

Bake for 30 – 35m. Let cool 5m, then lift each muffin out.

*Note: Can leave out flax seed meal.

Yes, we used Dad's "real" tools for this one. It was crazy fun!

Dad carving the top of the pumpkin while Seth waited patiently to see what was in the middle, boy, did he get a surprise!

Our little pumpkin Seth finally got a chance to carve his pumpkin from the orchard. He has been wanting to cut it open for a while now but I have just not had the time for the mess. Thus the poor holes in it from the squirrels chewing on it too. When Jason came home from work we jumping in with both feet.

We laughed hysterically once we opened it up however. Thinking this would be an enjoyable experience for Seth, we did not expect him to start gagging. We started to wonder if he was going to barf in our pumpkin. You know the smell if you have ever made a jack-o-lantern yourself. It is pretty unique and didn't bode well with our toddler.

I jumped in to clean it out and in hopes of saving what was turning out to be a disaster we decided to pull a Martha Stewart and let Seth drill some holes in it. (Yes I actually saw Martha do this to pumpkins on her show years ago!) He had a blast and all was saved, until we put the pumpkin back outside for the night. Seth was afraid the squirrels would finish it off for sure now that we put more holes in it!

Seth and his pumpkin on the front stoop, all the holes are in the backside!

Fire Fighter Seth was decked out in Fireman coats, boots, and hat. He also had a fire extinguisher that Dad carried and an orange construction cone to carry his candy. It seemed more creative than a bucket and it was small!

I can't say that I am a huge fan of Trick-or-Treating and Halloween in general. I love seeing toddlers all dressed up but the ugly evil stuff is was too much for me! However we have a family tradition of sharing something with the neighbors so we brought our Pumpkin Chip Muffins to the neighbors and decided that we would visit just a few other houses of people we knew around the "W".

It turns out that Seth loves to Trick-or-Treat. He would barely receive a handful of candy in his glowing orange cone and turn to us to plead, "Let's go to one more house!?!" We laugh long and hard at our little Fire Fighter and allowed about ten houses before heading home to bed. Now we have a one piece of candy a day rule. I hope I don't live to regret it because he surely will NOT forget Halloween any time soon!