Pumpkin Chocolate chip muffins

As most of you already know, I love Fall. It's by far my favorite season. Give me a big comfy scarf, sweater, some boots, apples and pumpkins and I'm a happy girl. But, I have been doing a lot of thinking lately and I've decided that when I turn 25, that will be my healthiest year yet. Not that I am unhealthy now, or eat badly, but I've decided that I am going to really put in the effort to be super conscious of all of the things I put on or in my body. Green Beauty and lots of green food :) But for now, let's talk about one of my favorite orange foods. Pumpkin :)

My mother used to always make pumpkin chocolate chip muffins when I was younger at this time of the year. There is an on going joke about "1 C means one can of pumpkin right?" instead of 1 cup in our house. But that is a story for another day, my dad is so helpful sometimes lol ;) Anyway, I decided I wanted to attempt making these delicious muffins not just allergy friendly, but also grain and refined sugar free. They came out so delicious! and they are completely guilt free on top of it. So here it goes :)

2 1/2 cups of ground sunflower seeds (flour)

1 heaping tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbs pumpkin pie spice

(you can add more or less depending on how it smells to you)

2 eggs

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

1/4 cup oil (coconut or olive both worked fine)

1 tsp vanilla

chocolate chips :)

I can't tell you how addicted I am to these things. The perfect snack with a cup of tea, or have them for breakfast. Super yummy. I may or may not be eating one as I sit here writing this... ;)

So first step, make your sunflower seed flour. It is the easiest thing. I bought a bag of raw sunflower seeds without the shell from the supermarket. Throw them in the blender in small amounts and blend until they are finely ground. Just make sure you don't blend for too long or you will start to make sunflower seed butter! Which is also delicious but not what we are going for. After I blended the entire bag up, I let it sit out on the counter for a few hours so it could dry out a bit. Then I transferred it to a jar so its ready to scoop out for whatever recipe I need it for.

So, this recipe is super easy. Combine all of your dry ingredients in one bowl, and all of your wet in another. Then combine them together and mix in your desired amount of chocolate chips. I would say 1/2 cup would probably do it. But be my guest to add more. (There is sugar in the chocolate chips, so I guess this recipe is not 100 % refined sugar free, but you can definitely find certain chocolate chip brands that are healthier than others.) Then scoop your batter into greased muffin tins and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Wait until they are cooled to eat, if you try to remove them from the tin while they are still hot they tend to be a bit too gooey and get stuck.

I love these muffins, so I hope you do too. I just wish it was appropriate to cook pumpkin things year round because I would totally eat this in every season.

<3