Pumpkin Muffins, and learning to love cooking

This post was inspired by two events. The first was my friend saying she is having a hard time with cooking. The second was watching--and being horrified by--the movie "King Corn". I needed some good ol' fashioned baking to cleanse my soul.

But first I should mention that I didn't always feel that way. I didn't used to be vegan, and I didn't used to be healthy. Though I grew up with two wonderful, involved hippie parents who used to cook and garden with me as a child, by the time I was old enough to actually *learn* we were so busy with soccer and ballet and art classes that we didn't have time to cook. Like most families today we cut dinner time to make time to drive to all the places we had to be. My family fell back onto frozen meals, and I never really learned to cook much else.

I became vegetarian in high school, and happily lived off a diet of veggie burgers and grilled cheese sandwiches. For the next eight or so years I alternated between being a vegetarian and a vegan, but because of my lack of cooking skills was never able to pull of being vegan and healthy for long. When I eventually got my own apartment, I ate lots of processed meals, salads with lots of ranch dressing, and not much in the way of vegetables besides what was hidden in meat substitutes.

Then I moved to Texas, and started getting more involved in what I was eating. I learned to read labels, began to go to a farmer's market. I worked mornings, and had my graduate classes at night, leaving me with afternoons free to cook. What *really* got me cooking, I have to admit, was watching Rachael Ray on the food network. She really took much of the mythical "mystery" out of cooking. And she gave me ideas to try and courage to experiment.

A lot of my food sucked at first. I remember the first time I made hummus, it was horrible. I burned things, undercooked things, added tablespoons when I should have been adding teaspoons. But through all of that I learned what was important in a recipe, and what could be 'fudged'. I also learned what I enjoyed making, and what wasn't worth it for me.

When Brian and I met, he already knew how to cook. He had been heading the same direction as I was, away from processed foods and towards healthy whole foods. Brian's Grandfather was a farmer in East Texas. He had lived off the food he grew, and lived on a mostly vegetable diet. Three years ago at the age of 96, having beaten cancer twice (once in his 90's), he finally passed away. Brian was very close to his Grandfather, copied his diet, and actually listened to him.

It's taken me three or four years, but I'm just now starting to be really comfortable with my abilities in the kitchen. Cooking makes me feel excited and creative, and I'm not afraid to play with recipes because I feel like I know what I'm doing.

So tonight, I made pumpkin muffins from Post Punk Kitchen. The only things that I changed were that I used applesauce instead of oil, and added raisins. They are so delicious that I'm not sure I'll be eating anything else for days. Here are some pictures:


I love those little paper cups.


Fresh ground cinnamon!


Filling the muffin tin.


And of course, the finished muffins, fresh out of the oven.