Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins and the Pentose Phosphate Pathway

My apologies for allowing things to be all quiet on the food blog front – I guess you could say that med school happened. The past two weeks have been filled with metabolic pathways and introduction to the immune system. There’s been a lot of tedious memorization, but we’ve also learned some practical skills on the side, like how to take a patient’s pulse and blood pressure! Very cool stuff, here. It at least helps remind us that we are in school to become doctors, not just to become professional studiers/coffee-gulpers/library hermits.

In other news, it’s cold here today! I guess, gauging by my last post, you might have thought that it’s been cold since then. Not so! The temperatures have been quite warm lately, but today felt like fall again! It’s been cold, overcast, windy, and rainy. Perfect studying weather if there ever was! This weather also makes me want to bake, read, and light spicy-scented candles. And wouldn’t you know, I did all those things today? 🙂

Our early-morning ladies’ Bible study starts up again tomorrow morning, so I decided to bake something to bring for breakfast. I was in a fall-ish mood, so pumpkin it was! I also had some assorted ingredients (leftover cranberry sauce and stale ginger-snaps) to use, so I combined them all into some rather tasty muffins! I hope no one minds that I’m bringing a “blogger’s dozen” muffins tomorrow morning (11 muffins: because one has to be tasted/broken open to photograph).

As a side note, our can-opener is broken, so I’ve been opening all of my cans with a knife lately. This simultaneously makes me feel very industrious/capable and like a hobo from an old movie. Eh, it’s real life.

PS. Sorry about the wonky lighting/coloring. Apparently there’s not a lot of sunlight at 8PM on a rainy evening in late October. Who knew?

Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

• 2 cups flour
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 cup whole-berry cranberry sauce
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup oil
• 5 ginger-snaps, crushed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a medium-sized bowl, combine pumpkin, cranberry sauce, egg, milk, and oil. Add to dry ingredients and stir til just combined. Fill 12 greased muffin cups and sprinkle ginger-snap crumbs on top.  Bake for 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

I used gingersnaps on top just because I had some stale ones in my pantry that I didn’t want to go to waste. If you don’t have them, a quick streusel topping (maybe brown sugar, oatmeal, and butter?) would be delicious! Also, I fully intended to put a tsp of vanilla extract in these and forgot, so maybe you’d like to try that as well! Or maybe use half whole wheat flour and half white. Be creative! Be daring! Don’t follow recipes! 🙂