Blueberry Pumpkin Muffins

It's "freezing" by my standards this morning. Especially up in the mountains, with a broken heater! Because of this, and also because I have a meeting later at Planned Parenthood (I'm an intern), I decided to make some delicious pumpkin blueberry muffins! These things are truly marvelous. My dear mother used to make them for me growing up. In the past I have always used canned pumpkin, but since everything tastes better when it is a) fresh and b) not processed by companies like Monsanto with innumerable corn products, I decided to make my own! Making pumpkin puree is embarrassingly simple. All you need to do is find yourself a pumpkin; any kind will do but the sugar pumpkin is readily available this time of year and has the best flesh, as well as being naturally sweet.

 I decided to make two batches this morning, one of mini muffins for my meeting and one of regular sized muffins for around the house. In my infinite wisdom, I put the mini muffins in the oven at 400 degrees F and put a timer on for 30 minutes. Why, you ask, did I do something so silly? Because it's the morning, and I'm tired, and I enjoy the sound of 3 fire alarms all going off at the same time in a small apartment! Lucky for you guys I now have proper cooking time for mini and regular sized muffins. Also, as you may have picked up, I like to use fresh, local, organic as often as possible. However, desperate times call for desperate measures and I can't spend $10 on a basket of fresh blueberries so I used frozen in this recipe. If you use frozen, be sure to thaw them before baking!

Blueberry Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Ingredients

1 medium size sugar pumpkin OR 1 C pumpkin puree

1.5 C flour (AP or whole wheat)

1tsp baking soda

1tsp baking powder

1/2tsp salt

1tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp cardamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 C evaporated milk

1/3 oil

1 C packed dark brown sugar

1 egg

1 C blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375f, cut your pumpkin in half lengthwise. Remove seeds etc. Place pumpkin face down on a baking tray and bake until the pumpkin is very tender. Remove from oven, scoop out the flesh and place it all in a food processor (or blender, if you have a VitaMix). Pulse in 1 second increments until your pumpkin flesh is smooth. Voila! A homemade pumpkin puree. When you take your pumpkin out of the oven, reset the heat to 400F
2. Grease muffin tins
3. As your pumpkin bakes, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and all the spices.
4. In a separate bowl, mix 1C of pumpkin puree with 1/4C evaporated milk
5. In yet another, large bowl mix together the oil and brown sugar. Mix these two until they are fully combined and nearly fluffy
6. Add egg to sugar and oil mixture
7. Add your pumpkin puree and flour mixture into the sugar bowl, do so in small amounts and alternate between the two. 
8. Gently stir in your blueberries
9. Add your batter to the muffin tins, about 3/4 full. 
10. Place them in the oven and bake! Check on mini muffins after 10 minutes, and the larger muffins after 30 minutes. The larger muffins may take closer to 40 minutes. The small muffins bake quick so keep a close eye on them after the 10 minute mark!