By September. The wheel turns. The kabocha arrives. The light changes. The cooking deepens. I stand at Carol's booth and buy the first kabocha and the ritual is complete and the year has reset and the reset is the comfort and the comfort is the practice and I am writing the word "practice" again because the word is the word and there is no other word and the practice is the life and the life is the practice and the circle does not need a different word, the circle needs the same word, repeated, the way miso soup needs the same ingredients, repeated, the way the morning needs the same dashi, repeated, the way the practice needs the same practice, repeated.
Miya started fourth grade — wait. Third grade. She is eight. Third grade. The grades and the ages are a mathematics I should know by heart and do not, because the heart that knows the grades is the same heart that is writing a book and teaching yoga and visiting Sacramento and making miso soup at five AM, and the heart is busy, and the busyness is the fullness, and the fullness is the excuse for not remembering which grade my daughter is in, which is a terrible excuse, which is the truth.
I made kabocha nimono. First of the season. The ritual. I have written about this ritual so many times that the writing itself is a ritual, the words about the kabocha a seasonal practice as reliable as the kabocha itself. But the writing is not repetition. The writing is variation. The kabocha is the same kabocha. The words are different words. The woman is a different woman. The thirty-nine-year-old who makes nimono in 2023 is not the thirty-four-year-old who made nimono in 2018. The nimono is the same. The woman has been through a marriage and a divorce and a publication and a pandemic and has emerged, on the other side of all of it, standing at the stove, making the same nimono. The sameness is not stagnation. The sameness is fidelity. The fidelity is the practice. There is the word again. The word is the word.
The nimono simmered and I had twenty minutes and a can of pumpkin puree and the knowledge that Miya — third grade, she is eight, I am writing it down now — would be home hungry, and the blender was already on the counter, and that is the whole story of how these muffins got made. They are not nimono. They are not ritual in the way that nimono is ritual. But they are made from the same squash family, the same orange flesh that means autumn to me, and they require almost nothing, and the practice of making something from almost nothing when you are busy and full is its own kind of fidelity.
Mini Flourless Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Blender Muffins
Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 13 min | Total Time: 23 min | Servings: 24 mini muffins
Ingredients
- 1 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
- 1/2 cup creamy almond butter
- 2 large eggs
- 3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, divided
Instructions
- Preheat. Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 24-cup mini muffin tin with cooking spray or line with mini paper liners.
- Blend the batter. Add pumpkin puree, almond butter, eggs, maple syrup, vanilla extract, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, and salt to a blender. Blend on medium speed for 30–45 seconds until completely smooth, scraping down the sides once if needed.
- Fold in chips. Pour the batter into a mixing bowl and gently stir in all but 2 tablespoons of the mini chocolate chips.
- Fill the tin. Divide batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Scatter the reserved chocolate chips over the tops.
- Bake. Bake for 12–14 minutes, until the tops are just set and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with only a few moist crumbs.
- Cool. Let muffins cool in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. They firm up as they cool — do not rush this.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 82 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 5g | Carbs: 8g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 78mg