*THE* Easy Healthy Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Chip Muffins & Fall Favor

The first day of fall = perfect time to bake our first batch of the famed healthy pumpkin chocolate chip muffins this season! (Apparently extra good timing, as Sis pointed out we forgot to make Babe a bday cake last month, so she can have these to celebrate! :-))

Reciplease? CRAZY EASY:
1 box spice cake mix
1 15 oz. can 100% pure pumpkin
1 cup chocolate chips
Mix it all together and bake at 350°
Mini muffins ~12 min
Regular muffins ~17 min
(This recipe usually makes ~36 minis & 6 regulars for me.)

Simple, healthy, (no butter or oil! extra vitamin A!) and so moist, they almost melt in your mouth like truffles! :-D

Speaking of the first day of fall - y'all, I don't have enough words for how happy I am *NOT* to dread fall this year. It was always my favorite season, growing up - pumpkins! football! - but the last five years up north turned my love into melancholy ennui. For me up there, it heralded the coming snow (it SNOWED on Oct. 13th that 1st fall - you can understand my freaking!) and ushered in a spiral of depression that lasted until the flowers bloomed (...the end of April, which also depressed me, b/c at home they bloom first of March.) I was too cold to enjoy hayrides, etc. up there. My body physically could not acclimate to the colder weather, and all fall became to me was the death knell of my comfort. But NOW?!?! I am thrilled to pieces to be back in Southern fall!!! From now through Thanksgiving: the flavors of pumpkin spice mingling with warm sunshine, where you can enjoy a hayride out to the pumpkin patch w/o wearing 5 layers of clothes or huddling for warmth in the wind, where you use a bonfire just for s'mores & not b/c you would freeze to death w/o it, where you can wear long-sleeved t-shirts w/o your winter coat & still get to look super cute at football games, where you can take your kids to the high school game on Friday night w/o their snowsuits, where you don't have to worry about ice or snow messing up your Thanksgiving travel plans, and where you can actually see what kids are for Halloween b/c you don't have to put turtlenecks under and scarves & snowsuits over your kids' Halloween costumes! :-D I'm so excited that people will be able to see what clothes I have on from October-April, instead of only seeing me in my formerly-omnipresent grey coat that I was always too cold to take off, even in restaurants. :-P Seriously, everyone loves & has personal pride in their home areas :-), and bless you, if the cold doesn't bother you; but PRAISE GOD that He has seen fit to send me & my family back to my home climate! :-D

Comments

  1. I love it when pumpkin season rolls around. These muffins sound delicious!

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  2. ME, TOO! And these totally are! :-D

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  3. how are these healthy again? :)

    i guess you and i differ on fall. i LOVE fall. i hate winter. i wish fall would last until april. no, until may! i love bundling up in chilly 50 degrees, and pumpkin/hayrides with blankets, hot cocoa, and first frosts...that extra blanket on the bed at night. but then after that? i'm with you on winter. brrrr....

    enjoy your lovely fall!!

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  4. Wow, recipes don't get any easier than that! I am totally going to make those muffins. Thanks for posting it!

    I love autumn, not fall...I love the leaves changing, cooler temps, apple orchards, etc. I do not like the brutally cold, gray, dreary days in November...the only upside is I get more stuff done around the house when I don't feel like going out. I don't mind winter and snow, but I wish it wouldn't last quite as long...this past winter was brutal in the midwest and it seemed to be neverending.

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  5. Liz! :-P They're still white flour & sugar in the boxed mix, but NO OIL or BUTTER FAT! And TONS of extra VITAMIN A from pure pumpkin! (Hey, they're better than normal cake! ;-))

    Re: ideal temps - I am *NOT* physically comfortable at less than 65°. My body just cannot acclimate to it. 60° = winter coat for me. That's why I was so "dramatically" miserable up north. And it will surely get colder than 65° this winter here, but the fact that it's possible to have that as a wintertime high some days? MAJOR burden of dread lifted! For me, perfect fall = 65°-70° :-) [Which is a HUUUGE cool down from the average 95°-105° summer temps, (which I also love! ;-)) A 30° drop is a definite season change - just a happier one for me. :-D

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  6. the only reason i asked about the healthy bits were because i'm looking for a replacement recipe for my pumpkin bread. i think i found one, and will share the recipe on my blog one of these days. but yours wins in the "easy" category hands-down! might have to make it someday for our book club. :) (with lots of kids)

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  7. Gotcha! Yeah, this recipe doesn't translate so well to regular loaves - too moist, I think? Excited for the future pumpkin bread recipe!!!

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