comfort muffin

Do you have a comfort food? You know...a food that gives you that instant feeling of calm in that first savory bite. A feeling of friends. Of home. Of the holidays. All those wonderful thoughts enter your mind after just one taste. Pumpkin bread is comfort food for me. I take one bite and I'm just plain content. Everything in the world, for that one moment, is good. There aren't many foods that do that to me. Strawberries come close. They are by far my favorite fruit. There was one time when I was very young, when I ate a few too many strawberries. I broke out in hives and I thought I'd never be able to eat strawberries again. This was a devastating thought! Thankfully, it was only a one time thing. The thought of not being able to eat pumpkin bread is a pretty awful thought as well. It's probably best that Heather and I are turning vegan in October. I'm not sure how I would handle having to give up eating a piece (or multiple pieces!) of pumpkin bread at Christmas. However, we have discovered a vegan pumpkin muffin recipe that is a close replacement. It's definitely not a complete replacement. Seriously, in my opinion nothing can compare to the pumpkin bread my mom makes. But, these muffins are surprisingly delicious. I have had other vegan muffins and have never been impressed. Needless to say, I definitely had my doubts with this one. My coworker (also named Mandi by the way) is vegan. She let me borrow a few vegan cookbooks and this was one of the recipes that she marked off as GOOD at the top of the page. Despite this, I was still a little doubtful. Not to mention the recipe called for molasses of all things! Ick! But, to my surprise, they were mighty tastey pumpkin muffins! Even though I was tempted, I didn't leave out the molasses. And because of an error on my part (adding the WHOLE can of pumpkin puree instead of just one cup) I ended up with a bunch of extra batter which I put into a mini muffin tin. So, I had a bunch of bite size guys. Also, my muffins ended up being a bit brighter orange in color than Heather's and I think they tasted a little different as well. But, none-the-less, my doubled pumpkin puree muffins tasted great. And I think the muffin itself was pretty pleased with how it tasted. While I was photographing it, I noticed that the muffin looked quite content. Check out the little grin. Comfort muffin? For sure.