By The holidays approach. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's — the annual trilogy of food and family and the particular exhaustion of a woman who cooks for every holiday as if the holidays are a relay race and the baton is a rolling pin. But this year the holidays carry extra weight: Marcus's last holidays living at home. Next Thanksgiving, he'll be at Morehouse. Next Christmas, he'll come back as a visitor. The table will still hold him but the chair will be visited, not occupied, and the difference between visiting and occupying is the distance between a child and an adult, which is eighteen years of cooking compressed into a single August morning when you drive him to campus and come home to a table with one fewer plate.
Thanksgiving. Seventh year. The food drive fed 160 families this year (the growth continues: the need grows, the response grows, the gap between them narrows but never closes). The dinner seated fourteen. Every tradition. Every dish. Every person. Curtis's toast — "To Mama" — seventh year. The ritual is limestone now, compressed by years into something permanent, immovable, ours.
After dinner, Curtis said something that stopped the room. He said, "This table is the best thing your mother and I ever made. Not the children. Not the house. The TABLE. The practice of sitting down and eating together. That's what Brenda built. And Tamika, you're the one who keeps building it." Seven words about the table. Curtis Jackson, who speaks in monosyllables, delivered seven sentences about the table and every sentence was a cathedral and the room was silent because when Curtis speaks at length, the world stops to listen.
After Curtis sat back down and the room found its breath again, I did what I always do when I need to hold something — I went back to the kitchen. These pumpkin muffins have been on this table since year three, quiet and reliable, the kind of recipe that doesn’t ask for anything from you except your attention. With Marcus’s last Thanksgiving at home now a countdown rather than a constant, I want every dish at this table to be one he carries with him — something he can make in a dorm kitchen, or a first apartment, or someday his own house, and feel the table come back to him. This is one of those recipes.
Vegan Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins
Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 22 min | Total Time: 37 min | Servings: 12 muffins
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed + 3 tablespoons water (flax egg)
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 cup pure pumpkin puree (not pie filling)
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
- 1/3 cup refined coconut oil, melted and slightly cooled
- 1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk (or any plant-based milk)
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips, plus extra for topping
Instructions
- Make the flax egg. Stir together ground flaxseed and water in a small bowl. Set aside for 5 minutes until thickened and gel-like.
- Preheat and prep. Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners or lightly grease each cup.
- Whisk the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger until evenly combined.
- Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, brown sugar, maple syrup, melted coconut oil, almond milk, vanilla extract, and the prepared flax egg until smooth.
- Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold gently with a rubber spatula until just combined — a few streaks of flour are fine. Do not overmix or the muffins will be dense.
- Fold in chocolate chips. Gently fold in 3/4 cup of the chocolate chips, reserving a small handful for the tops.
- Fill the tin. Divide the batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Scatter the reserved chocolate chips over the tops.
- Bake. Bake for 20–22 minutes, until the tops are set and a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs.
- Cool. Let muffins rest in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to 2 months.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 218 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 33g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 148mg