WKRPumpkin Muffins

I am a huge fan of pumpkin: pumpkins muffins, pumpkin pie, pumpkin ice cream - you name it. What disturbs me is that something like 96% of all the pumpkin consumed in the U.S. is canned, so why do we think of it a seasonal item if virtually none of us are using fresh and canned pumpkin is available year-round? This is a question that has always perplexed me. Really, why is there no pumpkin pie on the 4th of July? As a result, I make these pumpkin muffins all the time and any time and they are a family favorite breakfast as well as a snack. The recipe comes from the 1974  Bantam paperback version of the Betty Crocker cookbook, complete with a retro chic cover with pictures of a fondue pot and some sort of cheese mold with olives and crackers on it.  This was my first cookbook and I received it in the late 80's from my Uncle Dan when I moved into my first apartment in New York. Honestly, though, I don't think I have ever made anything else out of it other than these muffins, yet this book has stayed with me all of these years. It  boasts to have over 1600 of the world's most thoroughly tested recipes, which is comforting, but clearly it only takes one.

Now, all that being said, pumpkin still reminds me most of Thanksgiving. And Thanksgiving, as far as TV is concerned, has only one truly great episode - WKPR in Cincinnati's turkey drop (okay, I love it when the Peanuts have the dinner of toast and popcorn around the ping-pong table too,  but for comedy sake WKRP wins). The premise is that the station's owner, Arthur Carlson, has a brilliant promotional idea to give turkeys away the day before Thanksgiving in a shopping center parking lot. The plan goes awry when they decide to drop the live turkeys from a hovering helicopter with roving reporter and Buckeye Award winning newsman Les Nessman on the ground reporting what turns out to be carnage. Two great TV lines are uttered, the first by Les, "Oh, the humanity" which was made famous by the radio reporter witnessing the Hidenburg disaster and the second by Mr. Carlson, "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."  True TV gold, '....in Cincinnati'.


The Recipe:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar (although, I use slightly less and they are still good)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted ( I use reduced fat margarine with excellent results)
1 egg

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Line muffin pan with 12 muffin cups. Mix all ingredients just until flour is moistened. Batter should be lumpy. Fill cups 2/3 full. Bake 18 to 20 minutes. Immediately remove from pan and cool on a rack. Makes 12 any time of year muffins.