It’s been a slipper-sock kind of day around here!

Dreary, cold, drizzly and COZY. The perfect type of day to stay home, putter around, and bake a big batch of Pumpkin Spice Mini Muffins!

I featured these pillowy, cinnamon-sugar-topped pumpkin treats in last week’s Friday Favorites and wow, they did not disappoint. Warm spices like cinnamon and nutmeg swirl through a luscious pumpkin batter, and fill the whole house up with the unmistakable scent of Fall as they’re baking.

Warning: These mini muffins are as addicting as they are delicious. After devouring nearly half a dozen (…) I made my Mom stop by after work to take the rest home. Good thing there’s 2 kinds of fruit in the batter. I’m pretty sure that qualifies them as health food.

Pumpkin Spice Mini Muffins

Print this recipe!

Makes approx 36 mini muffins

Adapted from The Craving Chronicles

Ingredients:
1-3/4 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
3/4 of a medium sized banana, mashed
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup canned plain pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
1/2 cup skim milk
1/3 cup butter, melted
~1/4 cup cinnamon sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda and spices in a large bowl.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together mashed banana, vegetable oil, brown sugar, vanilla extract, pumpkin and skim milk until blended well.
3. Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients in three batches. Do not overmix. Spray a 24 count mini muffin pan with non-stick spray and fill the cups to the top. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
4. When muffins are cool enough to handle, dunk the tops in the melted butter, then roll in cinnamon sugar.

First pumpkin baking project of the season did NOT disappoint!

I eliminated an egg from the original recipe because, well, I had no eggs and was not about to shower in order to go to the store to get some. Pssht! Can you imagine!?

I’m glad I didn’t make the trek though, because the addition of a mashed banana in place of it made the muffins SO MOIST and squishy. The crunchy/sweet cinnamon sugar on top was the perfect, yummy contrast!

Later, in an effort to clean out the fridge of some “use or lose” produce, I made some Veggie Nachos for a late lunch/early supper.

BTW, do you say dinner or supper? I say dinner, but my Ohio-born parents say supper!

Anyways, I filled up some Tostitos Multigrain Scoops with freshly shredded fontina cheese, chopped broccoli, green onions and sweet corn, then baked them for 10 minutes at 400 degrees and topped each bite with a dallop of my kryptonite, aka Tostios Restaurant Style Salsa.

This was my first time have the multigrain scoops – they were awesome! Thick and like, deeply crunchy – dangit…what’s that word…dense, as opposed to crispy crunchy like regular tortilla chips. Plus the scoop shapes are great for filling all the way to the top with the restaurant style salsa. GOSH I LOVE THAT STUFF!

I also threw some asparagus spears I needed to use in between the nachos. Random, but delish.

Updates!

Several people asked, so I thought I’d share.

1. Ben and I both thought Up All Night was hysterical! I was laughing out loud for, legit, the entire half hour. Maya Rudolph was a bit over the top as Christina Applegate’s Oprah-esque talk show host boss, but other than that I adored it. Great wit and comedic timing by both Christina and Will Arnett. The show’s produced by Lorne Michaels too, so ’nuff said, in my opinion!

2. Lost in Shangri-La was ok. I enjoyed the book as I was reading it, but afterwards I was like…huh. Ok. It’s not a dramatic, war-filled story like Unbroken and Lone Survivor, but it is an interesting non-fiction about several people serving on a military base in present day Papua New Guinea during WWII, who survive a plane crash while out sight-seeing and how they basically live in the jungle as the military tries to figure out how to rescue them. I guess it was just not as dramatic as I was thinking it would be. Sorry, I’m a terrible book reviewer. This is why I cannot join book clubs.

3. Several people commented on the Iowa State University shirt Ben was wearing last night. I thought he was a Hawkeye fan!? you demanded to know! Sleep well, he is. Although he went to ISU for college, and therefore has a ton of ISU t-shirts, he has no emotional ties to their athletic teams for whatever reason. Basically what it comes down to is my beloved husband is a t-shirt whore and never gets rid of them – he still has one from 6th grade that he regularly wears – and this, coupled with the fact that he also never looks at the shirt he’s grabbing, occasionally results in what you saw last night. Regardless, good luck to the ISU’ers tonight – ESPN2 –> exciting!

Good story.

Aaaand I think it’s time for me to go. Have a GREAT night everyone!