Low-Fat Pumpkin Muffins

I made these wonderful pumpkin muffins from scratch!  Most of my baking is from scratch.  We live 60 miles from town with at least 17 miles of irregularly maintained dirt road.  This  means we can't just pick something up at the store on a whim.  It helps to plan a menu to help make sure I have the ingredients I will be needing.  This also means I try to keep my menu simple and versatile.  Baking is an effective way to accomplish that.

I used to be of the opinion that if it involved using the oven, then it was, well, involving.  Now I am of the belief that it has saved me time, energy, and money.  Muffins are now an integral part of our meals, especially breakfast.  Living so far from a town or grocery store makes the time it takes to make these a practicality.  Take these Pumpkin Muffins for example.  While doing school work with the kids, I also cut up and steamed two of our garden grown Pie Pumpkins.  In only took about 15-20 minutes to steam them until they fell off the skin.  Since we are right there on the dinning room table doing school, I can easily use the same time slot to do this steaming, separating, and pureeing.  The pumpkin puree then goes into the fridge.

The next morning I pull out the puree and prepare these muffins.  Here's the recipe:

• 1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup wheat germ
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
  (or 1/2 tsp each of cloves & nutmeg and 1/4 tsp each of allspice and ginger) 
• 1/3 cup pecan pieces

• 2 large egg whites or 1 large whole egg
• 1 cup fresh pureed cooked pumpkin
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 3/4 cup skim milk
• 1/2 cup dark corn syrup

      Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Spread out the pecans on a cookie sheet and toast for about 5-8 minutes.  Lightly grease muffin tin.  Increase oven temperature to 400 degrees.
     In a large bowl, mix first 7 (dry) ingredients together including toasted pecans.  In a small bowl, mix together last 5 ingredients.

Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir just until moistened.  Spoon into muffin cups and bake 20 - 25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.  Cool 1 minute and then serve!

These are delicious warm with a little butter or margarine!!!  Add a cup of green tea and an egg and you've got breakfast!

This recipe was modified from it's original which is found in this indispensable little book....

Her recipe is called Pumpkin Bran Muffins.  I've had this little book for over 10 years, and over time have learned her tricks and I've learned to modify them according to the ingredients I have on-hand.

By the way... Those two pie pumpkins I used to make the puree was enough to make two from-scratch pumpkin pies and 3 batches of pumpkin muffins!

That was just over 9 cups total of pumpkin puree out of two medium sized pie pumpkins!  Wow!

Honestly, I think we are spoiled!