Friday, September 23, 2011

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies - Happy Fall!

Today is the first day of fall.  I love fall.  I love love love love love it. As summer falls away, the sun gets softer and the temperatures are perfect 70's. The light is somehow more beautiful.  The evenings and mornings are crisp. Hints of red and gold appear in the trees. And we've settled into a nice routine with school and lessons by the time autumn comes along.

To celebrate the first day of fall today, I kept Eliza and Ashton out of school an hour longer after we finished their eye appointments (Liza's eyesight is a bit better but she still needs glasses, Ashton's 20/20 - headaches he's been having must be from something else, focusing problems I talked to his math teacher about must be because he's got a kid next to him who's a talker, not because he can't see the board).  We've got the school carnival to help with all afternoon and evening so the only time we could do our first-day-of-fall tradition of making pumpkin cookies would be while they were out of school for the eye appointments.

Liza and Ashton were very happy to skip just a bit more school so we could make the cookies together.  And wow, are they ever good!  I've eaten 3 (plus way too much cookie dough).  But hey, they have lots of healthy pumpkin in them - plus way less fat than most cookies - and some whole wheat flour...
Here are the cookies - plus a leaf we found on the first brilliant fall tree we've seen -
it was right by our car at the doctor's parking lot.
Here's the recipe in case you want your own delicious fall treat:

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 ¼ cups canned pumpkin (one 15 oz can, however many cups that is!)
2 ½ cups sugar
½ cup canola oil
½ cup applesauce
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups flour (I like to do 3 cups white flour, 1 cup whole wheat flour)
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
1 1/2 - 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (depends on how chocolatey you want them to be)

Mix together all the wet ingredients and sugar.  Then add the flour one cup at a time, mixing between each cup. Add the baking soda and spices with the last cup of flour.  Then fold in the chocolate chips.  Add a cup of chopped walnuts or pecans if you like (I usually do).

Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheet sprayed with non-stick spray. Bake at 350 for 10 - 12 minutes – be sure not to overbake! Take cookies out when they’re still a bit doughy looking. Makes about 32 cookies.


Enjoy!

Now I'm off to help set up for the school carnival.  How do I always end up helping with these things?  At least I don't have 2 wandering toddlers to worry about while helping at the school as was always the case a few years ago...

5 comments:

Eliza said...

What a neat tradition! I think I need to adopt something like that too.

(ps - I smile every time you type your daughters name. She's is the first Eliza I'd ever met, so I always remember her).

Linda said...

Love fall too, but It's hard to kiss summer goodbye! Thanks for the recipe. I probably have it somewhere but this will save me the trouble of finding it!

Love you!

chercard said...

Pumpkin chocolate chip cookes are my favorites and my kids love them but not my husband...bummer for him :) We made pumpkin/nutella bread last week...YUM!

lesli said...

saren,
is there really no egg needed in these cookies? i went to make them and stopped because i didn't know if they could do without an egg?
that would be amazing and they sound great.
lesli

Saren said...

Lesli:
Yep, it's true - no eggs needed.

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails