tasty tuesday: pumpkin muffins

I have a serious love for these muffins.  I could seriously eat them all day.  ALL DAY.

Living on a pumpkin patch has serious perks...one of them being an endless supply of pumpkins.  I honestly didn't even know that some people bought pumpkin from the store....IN A CAN.  What?  Weird.  Not that there's anything wrong with that...haha.  I was just completely ignorant of the fact.  And fresh just tastes better anyways.

Moral of the story: buy a pumpkin, cook it and make these muffins if you can.....but if you can't, buy it in a can and still make these delicious muffins!

And HERE's a quick how-to for cooking pumpkin!

Pumpkin Muffins

Ingredients:
4 eggs
2 cups of sugar
2 cups of pumpkin
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
3 cups of flour
2 tsp of baking soda
2 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
2 cups chocolate chips

Directions:
1)  In a large bowl, beat eggs, sugar, pumpkin and oil until smooth.

2)  Add flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt to pumpkin mixture and mix well. 

3)  Fold in the chocolate chips.
4)  Fill your (greased) muffin tins about 3/4 full, and bake at 400 degrees for 16-20 mins (or until a toothpick comes out clean!).

Jordyn and I like to fill our tins REALLY full.

These muffins came out beautifully with a nice dome, and a perfectly crunchy muffin top edge. My favorite!

Let us know if you have any requests for Fall treats!  And we'll do our best to fulfill them!

p.s. ♥ kelsey

back to basics: cooking pumpkin

It's that time of year again....pumpkin time! 

Jordyn and I are lucky enough to have an endless supply of pumpkins, seeing as we have a pumpkin patch on our farm!  I have a serious love for pumpkin muffins...so they'll be making an appearance tomorrow!

Cooking pumpkin is easy-peasy, and it's always nice to cook a bunch up to pop in the freezer for later in the year!

Cooked Pumpkin

All you need: -pumpkin (I used a Sugar pumpkin...they're great for baking!)

                     -glass baking dish

                     -water

Directions:

1)  Cut your pumpkin in half.  You can cut it into even smaller pieces, which will help it cook faster.

2)  Use a spoon to scoop out the insides.  All of the seeds and inner pulp should be removed. (Keep the seeds for roasting later!)

3)  Place your pumpkin slices in a glass baking dish, filled with about a 1/4 inch of water.

4)  Bake at 350 degrees for approximately an hour....checking every so often to see if it's done.  You want a fork to easily poke into the pumpkin, but be careful not to cook it into a mush.  

Be sure to check your water level as its cooking....you never want it to completely dry up!

**And very important: if you do add more water, be sure to add HOT WATER! Especially if the baking dish is nearly dry, adding cold water will cause it to crack...not good.**

You can see my fork marks from testing if the pumpkin was done!

To remove the pumpkin from its skin, I just used a spoon to scrap it off!

Once all of the skin is removed, you can dice up your pumpkin and mash it.  If you want an even smoother texture, you can use a blender! (I popped mine in our magic bullet using the largest cup, and it worked so well!).

You want your pumpkin to be quite thick, so if it's too watery you can always strain it over a fine mesh strainer (or on cheesecloth) to get rid of some of the liquid!

Happy October!

p.s. ♥ kelsey