Little Quiver: Move over Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins!

We discovered a new holiday favorite this year - Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins! After cooking up 10 lb. pumpkin and making some creamy soups - I still had A LOT left of course. And went to the drawing board.

With my truck load of cookbooks I often wish for some sort of search data base! Just type in my ingredients and then up would pop the cookbook names and pages of the choice recipes in .22 seconds flat! Would that take all the fun of traditionally looking through my cookbooks? I just received an email telling about the dying art of books, in the hard copy. I dunno - I think there are too many of us, who like to snuggle up with a real book...not the eerie glow of a lapbook...just doesn't have the same draw;)

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins.....(Starbucks has something like this as well)

::Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare 18 muffin cups.::

1 Cup of Cream Cheese ( you can substitute yogurt cheese like we did here, by draining yogurt through a cheese cloth).
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons brown sugar

::Beat this fillin until smooth. Set aside.::

Topping:

4 1/2 tablespoons whole wheat flour or flour of your choice
5 tablespoons sugar/coconut sugar/rapadura
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons chopped pecans (toasted for about 10 minutes on a cookie sheet in the oven at 350 degrees)

::Mix flour, sugar, cinnamon and pecans.Add butter and cut it in with a fork until crumbly. Set aside.::

Muffins:

2 1/2 cups flour (I used 1&1/2 cups white, 1 cup whole wheat)
2 cups sugar of your choice
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups cooked pumpkin puree
1/3 cup of olive oil
2 teaspoons vanilla

::In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Make a well in the center of flour mixture and gradually incorporate eggs, pumpkin, olive oil and vanilla. Mix until smooth.::