Recipe: Pumpkin Quinoa Muffins

Quinoa. Also known as "keen-wah."

It's one of those foods I felt like I was supposed to be eating, but then the healthy breakfast recipe I made with it was so disgusting that it made my kitchen stink and I actually took the stuff outside to the garbage can. And then I was left with this open bag of organic quinoa that I couldn't bring myself to toss because it was so expensive.

Twitter and Pinterest to the rescue, of course. Unfortunately I no longer remember which person tweeted the link to this recipe from Once a Month Mom, but it is awesome. Seriously.

Click the link for the complete original recipe, but here are my notes and adaptations. My kids and husband go through these so fast, that it's almost not worth making them without doubling the recipe...


Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 3 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups cooked quinoa (I've found that if you cook 1/2 cup of dry quinoa in 1 cup of water, you get a generous 1 1/2 cups of cooked quinoa, which works fine.)
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups pureed pumpkin (This is about what a can of pureed pumpkin contains, so by doubling the recipe you don't have that half a can of pumpkin sitting in the fridge.)
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup semi-sweet mini chocolate chips (They taste just fine without the chocolate chips. But because my children fight over things like who got the muffin with more chocolate chips in it, I found it was easier to put a scoop of muffin mix in the paper liner first, then place 5 chocolate chips in each one, then another scoop of mix on top. Yes, that's what my life has become.)

The original recipe is for 12 muffins, but I can usually get 18 out of it -- meaning that the doubled recipe gets me 36 muffins. If you prefer to make big heaping muffins, then maybe you'll only get 24. Also, she suggests freezing them and microwaving for breakfast, but they've never lasted long enough at my  house to get all the way to the freezer so I can't vouch for that step.

When you make these, let me know. I'll be over with hot tea for both of us.