Muffins!

Two weeks ago at school they told me how much Nathan enjoyed the muffins they made for snack. I decided we'd go home and make muffins. Of course, I wasn't going to use just white flour and white sugar and a few blueberries. We made pumpkin muffins and healthied them up. The first time I made them, I used about a cup of mashed pumpkin and substituted whole wheat flour and some wheat germ for part of the white flour. Nathan loved them. He ate 3 mini muffins and kept asking for more all day, "Muffin! Muffin" and singing "Have you seen the muffin man?" I think over the course of the afternoon I ended up giving him 2 more muffins, although he would have happily gorged on the whole batch. The next time I made muffins, I got rid of white flour entirely, subbing in some flaxseed meal as well as the whole wheat flour and wheat germ, and upping the amount of mashed veggies. I figured there was a chance I was going too far with this and I was going to get stuck eating a lot of dense, vegetable-rich muffins myself. After the first bite, Nathan looked a little confused, but he got over it. I continued to hear a lot of "Muffin? Muffin?"from him.
We made muffins again the other day. I put all the wet ingredients except eggs together and all the dry ingredients together. I had him help me crack the eggs (hand over hand) and stir a little. Then we put them in the oven. Then, Nathan, impatient, climbed up into his seat and began to whine:

Very sad! It's hard to wait. But eventually they were done.

Here are our muffins. These have blueberries because I was out of raisins. Blueberry-pumpkin-spice? The odd combo didn't seem to bother Nathan much!

Probably my kid is an anomaly and nobody else's kid would eat such a thing (and wash it down with carrot juice!) but in case you're interested, here's my recipe, adapted from the pumpkin bread recipe in the Joy of Cooking (the 90's edition, not the super-old-school Joy). I do use real butter and real sugar in them, just in case you were thinking I was a totally cruel person who makes my child subsist on flaxseed and veggies alone.

Pumpkin Muffins
preheat oven to 350

1 1/2 cups flour -- I use a mix of whole wheat flour, flaxseed meal, and wheat germ
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground ginger (fresh grated works well too)
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup water or milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
4 Tbsp butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups pureed pumpkin, squash of any kind, or cooked pureed sweet potato (or a cup of pureed veggie and 1/2 cup shredded carrots or zucchini)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1/2 cup raisins (or dried cranberries, or if you want to go crazy, blueberries).

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, then pumpkin, then vanilla and water or milk. Mix. Add all those dry ingredients and mix until combined. Add the raisins and nuts last and mix in. Bake your muffins in greased muffin tins. Mini muffins are going to take about 20 minutes, but check them after 15; muffin pans and ovens vary. Bigger muffins will take longer. They are done when a toothpick comes out clean. The child is done whining when he is served muffins. :)