Yesterday I made a trip to Trader Joe’s with little miss Ava. I don’t know which one of us loves that store more. She has a blast pushing her little grocery cart around the store and I enjoy looking at all the new products that they keep stocking their shelves with.

After stumbling across Trader Joe’s pumpkin display of all things pumpkin my brain started thinking of all the things I need to start baking. I looked at the boxes of pumpkin pancake mix, waffle mix, pumpkin bread, pumpkin bars, pumpkin everything and as I looked at the ingredients I got frustrated when I saw the word SUGAR as either the first, second or third ingredient. I get it… baked goods should have some sort of sweetness, but sugar shouldn’t be the first ingredient right?

Okay, so I got home from the store and immediately started looking up recipes and I really couldn’t find one that I wanted to make, they were all packed with white flour and sugar. I didn’t have flour, I didn’t have vanilla extract, my ingredients needed to be simple and clean.

As I was making these muffins, I’m pretty sure Marc started questioning how they would turn out. I debated whether or not to use almond butter, but I went with my belly I mean gut and chose peanut butter. I tossed up the idea of maple syrup but Marc chose honey, and I used oat flour because Kelly’s kitchen was out of every other type of flour.

So I whipped up a FLOURLESS PEANUT BUTTER PUMPKIN MUFFIN. It has the spice of pumpkin, it’s moist, there’s a hint of peanut butter and a delicious touch of pumpkin and just like that I’m hooked on my creation. (I think Marc is too!!)

His response to his first bite of muffin was, “I think I could eat all of these!”

(WIN!)

Now for the recipe:

FLOURLESS PEANUT BUTTER PUMPKIN MUFFIN

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup oat flour
• 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/4 cup peanut butter
• 5 tsp honey
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 tsp baking soda

Optional: add 1/4 cup of mini chocolate chips (which I am definitely trying next time!)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line muffin tin with 8 liners.
2. Put 2 cups of oats in a food processor. Mix until oats become flour. Pour flour in a container.
3. Combine all ingredients in food processor and blend until mixture is smooth.
4. Pour mixture in each muffin tray until filled 3/4 of the way to the top.
5. Place in oven and cook for 12-14 minutes or until cooked through (I use a toothpick to test)

ENJOY!

(yields 8 small muffins!)

I can’t wait to eat one of these for a morning snack! They might not make it to the weekend!

What’s your favorite healthy pumpkin recipe? 

Do you prefer pumpkin spice baked goods or apple baked goods?

For a well balanced breakfast these blueberry muffins would be great with a couple of eggs!

BLUEBERRY OATMEAL MUFFINS

Ingredients:

2 1/4 rolled oats

1 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup light brown sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons ground flaxseed

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1/3 cup canola oil

1 cup skim milk

1 cup blueberries

3/4 cup water

Directions:

1. PREHEAT oven to 350 degrees and line muffin pans with paper liners. In a large mixing bowl, mix flour, oats, brown sugar, flax, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon.

2. Add eggs, oil, skim milk and 3/4 cup water. Mix until combined and then fold in the blueberries. Fill each muffins cup to the top and bake the muffins for 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes before serving.

As you can see, I took a big old bite right away!! YUMMMMM

Makes 12 muffins, approximately 210 calories, 8g fat, 2.8g fiber, 4.8g protein

On my trip, I purchased a package of Pumpkin Muffin mix that I heard was super tasty.

The package instructions were to add 1 cup of water, 2 eggs, & 1/2 cup of oil. Since I rarely follow a recipe completely by the instructions I decided to do 1/4 cup of organic vanilla yogurt and 1/4 cup of oil. This way we cut the fat in 1/2!!

This batch made 12 medium size muffins and 12 mini-muffins. I figured the mini-muffins would be great to take on-the-go! I also decided that I was going to freeze some of the bigger muffins to have handy once the baby comes and I need a quick little snack.

On a random note… When we took Cooper for a walk this past Sunday look what he found!!!

I guess he is allowed to pick up trash every once in a while Speaking of Cooper, he loves the new carpet we got on our stairs, it is his new hang out! The carpet is part of our baby-proofing to make sure we don’t slip carrying the baby around the house.