Banana, Pear, and Almond Muffins

Again with the muffins! But last Friday was a really muffiny sort of day: cold, drizzly and miserable in that special November way. Not only that, I was actually able to justify doing something other than writing a paper, so I made a big pan of baked pumpkin pasta, using a big old butternut squash instead of the pumpkin, and decided to turn the two overripe pears and a two of their buddies in the fruit bowl (equally overripe bananas) into some warm, comforting muffins. With some raisins and slivered almonds thrown in, they definitely turned out better than the sum of their parts, and all that fruit meant that I didn't add any sugar at all, if you care about such things.

Banana, Pear, and Almond Muffins
Ingredients:
~ 2 cups flour
~ 1 tbsp. baking powder
~ 1/2 tsp. each salt, nutmeg, allspice
~ 1 tsp. each cinnamon, ground ginger
~ 1/2 cup slivered almonds
~ 3/4 cup raisins
~ 1 tsp. vanilla extract
~ 6 oz. plain or vanilla soy yogurt
~ 1 tbsp. canola oil
~ 2 very ripe bananas
~ 2 equally ripe pears (apples would work, too), coarsely chopped

Directions:
~ Preheat the oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit.
~ In a mixing bowl, combine all the dry ingredients (including the almonds and raisins) and sift thoroughly.
~ Put the bananas, chopped pears, yogurt, oil and vanilla extract in a blender and process until smooth.
~ Pour the blended mixture into the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until just combined.
~ Scoop the batter into greased muffin tins and bake for 20 minutes, or until a knife or toothpick comes out clean.
~ Allow to cool for about 10 minutes before turning out and eating with EB, jam, peanut butter, or all by their sweet selves. Cozy!