Tuesday, October 24, 2006

They hit the spot



Pumpkin Muffins
Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2006 Copyright 2005

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup granulated sugar I used Splenda
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 ¼ teaspoons pumpkin-pie spice
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup canned pumpkin
½ cup fat-free buttermilk I think I used 1%
½ cup egg substitute
¼ cup canola oil
¼ cup applesauce
Cooking spray

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Lightly spoon flours into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flours, granulated sugar, and next 5 ingredients in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk.
3. Combine pumpkin and next 4 ingredients in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Spoon batter into 16 muffin cups coated with cooking spray. I didn't want to dirty two pans so I made 12 larger muffins. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes or until muffins spring back lightly when touched in center. cool muffins in pans 5 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pans. Cool completely on wire rack.

Yield 16 muffins. Per muffin: 145 cal, 4.6 g fat, 2.6 g pro, 24.1 g carbs, 1.2 g fiber, 0 mg chol, 149 mg sodium, 33 mg calcium
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I've been craving pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting but these muffins made a nice, less caloric, substitute. I used Splenda in place of the white sugar and they turned out great. Still a slight Splenda aftertaste but the texture was wonderful. You can fancy these up with fruit, nuts, chocolate, etc but I really enjoyed them plain.

These are my contribution to Sweetnick's ARF/5-A-Day Tuesdays. At first, I didn't think pumpkin was included as one of The World's Healthiest Foods but then I found it lumped in with the winter squash.

What a busy night I had. Due to poor planning, I worked on three meals last night. I made last night's dinner, then I prepped tonight's dinner so I can just toss it in the oven tonight. That is pretty much my normal routine (I always try to do as much prep work for the next night as I can). But I also looked at the weekly menu and realized I needed to prep Wednesday's dinner too since it needs to be cooked in the crockpot tonight. So I practically cooked dinner three times last night. Yikes! That was a little too much, even for me.

A reminder: Only one more week left to sign up for the October cookbook giveaway.

A Blast From the Past: Spaghetti Alla Bolognese from May 2006. I think I'm putting that on next's week's menu. I have practically everything I need to make it and it was really good.

Question of the Day: What have you been craving?

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Those look so good! I LOVE pumpkin baked goods. Actually made butternut squash last night and that was pretty good too! I've been craving something fried...but that comes and goes, so I haven't given in yet!

Annie said...

I love pumpkin muffins. Those look light and delicious.

I had been craving biscotti and I just gave in and made some. (And I'm so glad I did!) I'll be posting them soon. :)

Annie said...

Btw, I made your creamy pasta over the weekend. It was good, but for some reason my mushrooms were a little chewy. This seems to happen a lot lately when I saute mushrooms.

I just wiped them off with a dry paper towel to clean them, sliced them thin and cooked them with the garlic and proscuito (instead of bacon) in the oil and I used Smart Balance Spread in place of the butter.

After about 2 minutes they weren't brown yet, so I let them cook a little longer and then they started to release a lot of liquid! So at that point I figured that I had to cook them until the liquid evaporated (about 10-12 mins).

Then I added lemon juice and chicken broth (instead of wine), and then the fat-free half & half.

Any ideas on why they turned out chewy??

The Cookbook Junkie said...

Annie,

Your problem is probably the spread. Spreads contain a lot of water. The spread might be fine for sautéing other veggies, but mushrooms have such a high water content. I would just use oil if you avoid butter completely, and add the Smart balance for flavor after the mushrooms are sautéed.

Anonymous said...

There are so many pumpkin goods in blog-dom that I'm almost feeling paralyzed by choice! :)

Cravings... profiteroles.Yum.

Anonymous said...

I sympathize w/ your cooking marathon -- I tend to do the same thing. On Sunday, I made buffalo-style chicken wings for dinner per hubby's request [the Eagles were playing -- and, according to him, "Wings are the ONLY thing to eat" when watching football".] (Only problem -- hubby doesn't like wings, per se -- he likes meaty drumsticks instead, so I roated chicken drumsticks w/ wing sauce). While they were cooking, I made sloppy joes for Monday dinner using recipe from Rachel Ray's "More 30 Minute Meals" AND a "pork provencal" stew for tonight's dinner (Tuesday). Today, I prepped the crockpot meal for Wednesday's dinner......while baking for Wednesday treat day. !!!

As far as cravings.....peanut butter brownies.

Anonymous said...

A big Mexican platter. Ole!!

Jan