Pumpkin Muffins and Visit from School Lunch Chefs

Nov. 1st - We were thrilled to have Ann Cooper's chefs, Erik Ditzer and Deb McCormick come and help us make pumpkin muffins at Garden Group. Sunny Young, Grants and Intern Coordinator for the School Food Project was also there to take photos and answer questions. Many parents brought mixing bowls, muffin tins and other tools so that we could break out into 4 'baking groups'. Michele brought different colored eggs from her backyard chickens, and I brought pureed pumpkin prepared from a Cinderella pumpkin and a regular pumpkin from the Heatherwood Garden. (Baking a pumpkin is surprisingly easy. I just cut it in quarters with the skin on, baked at 350 for 1.5 hours, scraped the pulp away from the skin, let this drain in a colander, then pureed it in my blender. Both pumpkins yielded 6 cups of pureed, drained pumpkin.)

Thanks to Erik and Deb, we were able to use the Heatherwood Kitchen's convection oven.

The kids got a tour of the school kitchen and to see how an industrial dish washing machine works. We made more than 100 muffins and were happy to be able to share them with all the kids in SAC.

Deb let us know that organic Delicata squash from the CU gardens will be served in all of BVSD school lunches on Thurs., Dec. 2nd and Dec. 16. Organic Spaghetti squash from Isabella Farms will be served at school's on Tues., Dec. 9th.

Heatherwood Garden Pumpkin Muffins (Makes 24 muffins- adpated from Ellie Krieger's Pumpkin Muffin Recipe)

Ingredients

4 cups of organic all purpose flour (we used half all purpose and half King Arthur white whole wheat flour)

2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar

1/2 cup canola oil

4 large eggs

2 cups canned or cooked and pureed pumpkin

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups milk

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg.

In a large bowl, whisk the sugar, oil and eggs until combined. Whisk in the pumpkin and vanilla. Whisk in the flour mixture in 2 batches, alternating with the milk. Whisk just until combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared muffin pan with paper liners.

Bake regular muffins for 20 minutes at 400 degrees.