Dark Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

October is my favorite month of the year... leaves changing, cooler weather, Halloween, cider, pumpkins. So when I wanted to bake a new cookie, it was only fitting that I chose one with pumpkin. This recipe is from allrecipes.com, though I am sure there are many versions of this popular cookie.

This is a soft, almost cake-like cookie, and perfect to drink with hot apple cider.


Ingredients

• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions

1. Combine pumpkin, sugar, vegetable oil, and egg. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon, and salt. Dissolve the baking soda with the milk and stir in. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and mix well.
2. Add vanilla, chocolate chips and nuts.
3. Drop by spoonful on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for approximately 10 minutes or until lightly brown and firm.

*To make this cookie healthier, I replaced the vegetable oil with applesauce, and the all-purpose flour with whole-wheat flour. I also used dark chocolate chips. To make the cookies "orange", I added four drops of red food coloring to the batter before putting them on the cookie sheet.

Lucky Lemony Coins

Cookies don't last long in our house. Both my husband and I have a great love for sweet treats, and when a girl spends the majority of her day in an apartment with a cookie jar full of yummy, gooey, chocolaty cookies... it just doesn't end well. For the cookies that is.

So once again, our cookie jar is empty.


So I turned to my recipes and cookbooks to find a recipe for the next delicious cookie that would tempt me. Which is how I came upon these lucky lemony coins. For my bridal shower, one of my friends gave us Crate and Barrel's jar of cookie cutters, and Rose Dunnington's "The Year of the Cookie" cookbook. I had yet to make anything out of this cookbook, even though the pictures of each type of cookie look amazing.

Now I've made a lot of chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies, and I wanted a break. So I flipped past each similar cookie until I came upon these darling cookies with one of my favorite ingredients: lemon!

These were fun to make, and I got to use my brand new hand mixer! (Birthday gift from my mom.) These cookies also don't contain any eggs, so feel free to taste a bit of the cookie dough. (I know I did.)

I think I rolled the cookie dough snake out a bit too thin because I ended up with a lot more then 50 cookies... which is what the recipe yielded. I think I have about 70. But, they are tiny and cute and perfect!

Ingredients:

2 sticks (1 cup) butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
zest of 1 big lemon, or 2 little lemons
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour, sifted
yellow sparkle sugar (I had to use green as Kroger didn't carry yellow :( )

1.) Cream the softened butter with the sugar, zest, and salt. Use the rubber spatula to scrape down the beaters and side of the bowl.

2.) Dump the flour into the bowl with the butter mixture. Use your fingertips to rub the flour into the butter. (The hand motion is like the gesture that means "money.")

3.) Squish the crumbly dough together until it forms a ball. Dump the ball of dough onto the board, and knead it several times. Divide the dough in half, and shape each half into a ball. Put the balls back in the mixing bowl.

4.) Wipe any stray clumps of dough off the board. Sprinkle a few tablespoonfuls of yellow sparkle sugar on the board. Roll one of the dough balls into a long, sugarcoated snake, about 1 inch in diameter. Wrap the snake in plastic. Do the same thing with the other half of dough. Freeze the snake for half an hour.

5.) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Unwrap one of the chilled dough snakes and put it on the board. Cut the dough into 1/4-inch thick slices. Put them on the cookie sheet1/2 inch apart. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

6.) Bake the cookies 8 to 10 minutes, until they look dry on top, but are still pale. Use oven mitts to take the cookie sheet out of the oven. These little cookies are very delicate, so don't try to move them until they cool.

Two types of peanut butter cookies

Peanut Butter Blossoms

My husband and I made these cookies for a Christmas party we had at our apartment. Who doesn't love peanut butter and chocolate?


Ingredients:

48 Hershey's kisses, unwrapped
1/2 cup shortening or butter (I always use butter)
3/4 cup peanut butter (creamy)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup packed brown sugar1 egg
2 T milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1 1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
sugar for dusting


1.) Heat the oven to 375 degrees.
2.) Beat butter and peanut butter until well blended. Add 1/3 cup of sugar and brown sugar, and beat until fluffy. Add egg, milk, and vanilla; beat well. Stir together the flour, baking soda and salt, and gradually beat this mixture into the peanut butter mixture.

3.) Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in sugar and place on ungreased cookie sheets.
4.) Bake for 8-10 minutes until browned lightly. Immediately press a chocolate kiss into the center of each cookie. Remove cookies to a rack to cool.

*This makes 4 dozen cookies.



Magical Peanut Butter Cookies



So there is a theme going here... peanut butter! These cookies are super, super easy to make and require very few ingredients. This recipe is from Paula Deen. I would double or triple the recipe, as these will go quick!

*I used real sugar, not Splenda.