Sugar and Spice (and everything nice) Pumpkin Muffins

I've been camping out near UCSD's campus in beautiful La Jolla with my brother and his roommate, two graduate experimental music students. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that they were living on a diet of lentils, peanut butter, coffee and whiskey (ie: no surprise). After making an awesome pumpkin pie (see previous post) and chocolate chip zucchini bread, I had a leftover can of pumpkin, some flour and half a bag of chocolate chips at my disposal. These are what resulted.

Sugar and Spice (and everything nice) Pumpkin Muffins
(Musical accompaniment: Melt Banana, "Blank Page of the Blind"... er, I mean, Fleet Foxes "Helplessness blues" blasting on my headphones to drown out the screechy screechy.)
2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
2/3 cups sugar
1/2 cup veggie oil
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 can pumpkin puree
1/2 bag vegan chocolate chips
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2/3 cups almond milk
pinch cinnamon
pinch nutmeg
pinch chili powder
splash vanilla extract.

Preheat oven to 350F
Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Add in pumpkin puree, oil, almond milk, apple cider vinegar, vanilla and spices
Stir until well blended. If the mixture appears dry, add a splash more oil.
Add in chocolate chips and mix gently.

Fill muffin cups halfway (these babies will rise!)
Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Vegan Patriot Pumpkin PIe

This thanksgiving I'm thankful for the U.S. Constitution, particularly the 1st amendment and all those wonderful rowdy citizens who risked and still risk their lives in pursuit of a better America. Y'all make me so damn proud.

In honor of these patriots, and in honor of autumn, I finally got brave and decided to whip up a vegan pumpkin pie. We didn't grab vegan whipped cream, so I fashioned some out of combining coconut milk, powdered sugar, veggie shortening and vanilla extract. I also threw in a bunch of spices and made an all-over icing spread, but it came out a little runny, so I'm going to perfect that recipe before I post it on here.

Vegan Patriot Pumpkin Pie 
(musical accompaniment: Graham Parsons, "Wild Horses")
1 9 inch unbaked pie crust (I  bought mine)
1 15 oz can of pumpkin puree
1 cup coconut milk (you want the full fat stuff, preferably from a can)
8 tablespoons wheat flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup veggie oil
2 tablespoons cinnamon
2 tablespoons ginger
1 tablespoon nutmeg
1/2 tea spoon salt

Preheat oven to 400 F
Combine all ingredients, mixing thoroughly (you can use an electric mixer)

Pour into pie crust
Bake for about 60 minutes
Remove pie from heat, allow to cool for about 1/2 an hour (pie will be slightly jiggly until it cools completely).