10.31.09 Happy Tama Day!

Halloween or the day of the black kitty cats has finally arrived. In honor of this fabulous, treat-filled holiday, I am posting a pumpkin cookie recipe courtesy of Jessica Nunnery. Jess got the recipe from Thenest.com but has made a few changes. I suggest you make these changes because she is a great cook and baker.

Ellie Bear has worn a Halloween outfit every day this week and tonight she will be dressed as Tama (you guys have all seen the pictures already). Tonight we are going to our dear friends Joe & Aida's house for a tasty dinner and good wine. Yum! I get the pleasure of handing out Halloween candy to all of the trick-or-treaters. This is my favorite part of Halloween--well that and having Ellie Bellie all decked out in costume.

Do not forget that Daylight Savings time ends tomorrow at 2am or thereabouts. Do you think Ellie will understand that Mommy gets an extra hour of sleep? I didn't think so either. Although, I cannot complain for this past week she has slept through the night ~ 6 hours until 4:30am and then she sleept another 3 hours after a feeding. Medical definition of "sleeping through the night" = 5-6 hours of consecutive sleep. Yay Ellie!

Here is the recipe (Areas that Jess modified are in red):

Un-Cakey Pumpkin Cookies

1 cup Sugar
1 cup Canned Pumpkin (that is about 1/2 can)
1/2 cup + 1 tbsp Vegetable oil
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 cups Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
1/4 tsp Ground Cloves
1/4 tsp Salt

1/2 cup Chocolate chips (this is optional) Jess used butterscotch chips. Her husband Mike claims that the butterscotch chips make the cookies. I am a chocolate freak so I am debating on making half with butterscotch and half with chocolate.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease baking sheet.
Mix sugar, pumpkin, and oil (and Vanilla Extract) until there are no chunks or clumpiness.
Sift in dry ingredients and mix well (Jess did not sift but rather mixed the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and then added them to the wet ingredients.)

Fold in chocolate or butterscotch chips.

Flour your hands (dough is sticky). NOTE: Jess refrigerated the dough first so that the dough was not sticky. She did not need to flour her hands. Take a Tbsp of dough and roll into balls. Then press into cookie shape onto baking sheet. The shape will not change during baking so keep that in mine. Author of recipe states that she pressed hers down very thing to be a chocolate chip cookie-esque shape.

Bake 7-9 minutes. Bottoms will brown lightly. Remove to cooling rack.