I have a can of pumpkin and it's buring a hole in my cabinet!

There's something about fall that just inspires me to do things like cook, craft and decorate.  My head gets full of great ideas and while most leave when I begin my 4th consecutive hour of mindless TV watching, some just keep taunting me.  I was at Trader Joe's last weekend and saw an end cap with pretty much an angelic light beaming down upon it. Canned pumpkin.  I was immediately drawn to it.  I have been going through an unexpected pumpkin phase/obsession so I couldn't wait to go home and use it. 

Well, it's been over a week and there it sits.. all alone, begging to be used.  I try not to coddle my canned goods, so it doesn't know that I've been dreaming of different ways to use it.  Do I want to make some kind of whip? Coffee drink? Cookies? Entree?  The possibilities are endless!  I went to my beloved www.allrecipes.com to get some ideas on ways to use it.. but can't decide on just one.

Being that my husband, Jim, is a 32 year old child and doesn't want to try anything that even somewhat sounds "different," I have to find a way to make my dishes sound appealing... What what's more appealing than Chocolate?  Pretty much nothing, so I have chosen to make Chocolate Chip Pumpkin muffins. 

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup canned pumpkin
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1.     Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease and flour muffin pan or use paper liners.

2.     Mix sugar, oil, eggs. Add pumpkin and water. In separate bowl mix together the baking flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt.. Add wet mixture and stir in chocolate chips.

3.     Fill muffin cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes.

Sooo.. I didn’t have any nutmeg.  I have no idea how I can call myself a holiday enthusiast and not have the most basic holiday spice. I also did not have any cloves.. ugh. I rummaged through my cupboard and found a small thing of pumpkin pie spice.  I bought it a while ago when I was determined to make my own pumpkin spiced latte (again, obsessing over pumpkin.)  That is a blend of cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, so I thought it would work.

I ended up making one tray of large muffins and one tray of mini. I  Since I’m not much of a baker, I thought I would just throw the minis in about a minute after the big muffins. Well.. they were dry. Blah. The large muffins turned out quite nice, though. I put a little extra ginger in the batter and I thought it gave it a nice taste.  Now, I may be a little biased because of the chocolate chips, I mean, what’s not better with chocolate chips? But these were pretty good.  Not going to lie, they were not the best things ever.. but enough to put an end to this sick pumpkin obsession. 

 Pumpkin baking? CHECK!