Pumpkin!

I have never cooked with pumpkin. The girls over at What's Cooking were making some really delicious sounding things, so I decided I had to try it!

First up, Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins (care of Musing of a Mommy).

These were really good and made the kitchen smell GREAT! I think I like them better without the cream cheese, though.

Almost-Like-Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins... on a diet

~3 cups flour (I intended to use 1/2 whole wheat and 1/2 all purpose, but grabbed the wrong bag at the store)
~1 tsp cinnamon
~1 tsp nutmeg
~1 tsp ground cloves
~4 tsp Pumpkin Pie spice (I used a substitution of ground cinnamon, ground ginger, nutmeg, ground cloves in a 4:2:1:1 ratio)
~1 tsp salt
~1 tsp baking soda
~4 eggs
~2 cups sugar
~2 cups cooked or canned pumpkin
~1 ¼ cups vegetable oil (I used 1 ¼ cups unsweetened applesauce)
~8 oz package cream cheese (I used 4 oz fat free and 4 oz of the 1/3 less fat variety)
~Chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans) (optional, and I didn't use them)

Place cream cheese on tinfoil, roll into a log and freeze for up to an hour. Mix ingredients together except cream cheese and nuts. Fill muffin tins (greased or paper cups) half full. Remove cream cheese and slice. Put 1-2 tsp cream cheese in the middle, pressing down. Sprinkle with 1 tsp chopped nuts. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean from the muffin part (do not touch the cream cheese!). Let cool in pans for 5 minutes, then remove to racks to cool completely. Makes 24 muffins.

As I made them, the nutrional information per muffin is as follows:
Calories: 130
Fat: 2.3 g
Sat. Fat: 1.0 g
Cholesterol: 45 mg
Sodium: 216 mg
Potassium: 77 mg
Carbohydrates: 23 g
Fiber: 1.5 g
Sugar: 10 g
Protien: 4.2 g