The first mistake I made was buying the bag of tiny dark chocolate chips. I typically do my best to stay away from such things, but I went into Nuts to You yesterday afternoon on an empty stomach and I found that my willpower wasn’t strong enough to resist the mini-chips.

The second was not having enough protein in my dinners (either the one I ate before class or salad I scarfed afterwards). When I don’t eat enough protein during the day, I crave sweet things. A lot.

So I got home hungry, walked into the kitchen to look for a snack and spotted the chips. It’s amazing how few steps it took to get from spotting the chips to having hot Whole Wheat Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins cooling on my counter. I altered a recipe I found in a stack of old recipe printouts and went to work. 3/4 cup of packed brown sugar
1/4 cup of vegetable oil
2 eggs
3/4 cup of canned pumpkin
1/4 cup of water
1 1/2 cups of whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground clove
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup of mini dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray your muffin tin with some chemical laden non-stick stuff or line the pan with paper cups.

Mix sugar, oil, eggs, pumpkin and water in one bowl (I did it in the bowl of my mixer). Combine all dry ingredients (feel free to adjust the spices up or down depending on your taste) and then add the dry ingredients to the wet. Mix to combine. Fill the muffin cups about 2/3 the way up (I use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to keep the amounts equal) and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.