KNR, p. 228 “Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies”
The ‘Season for Everything Pumpkin’ should include a great pumpkin cookie. 🙂
At the Kerrian household, the time between Halloween and New Year’s Day is when we add pumpkin to lots of dishes. Some turn out to be scrumptious, some we never talk about again, but we had never found the right combo for a pumpkin cookie. Until now. By simply adding pumpkin to one of our favorite chocolate chip cookie recipes, and tweaking it a bit, this has become a tasty regular snack treat for Autumn.
We (me, any neighbors we could snag, and the mail gal) taste-tested this one until we were satisfied. We might have taken longer than we needed to. Taste-testing is a challenge we take seriously, no matter how many cookies must be eaten.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Author: Sheila, Charlie, and the neighbors
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 20-24 3" cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup spreadable butter or margarine (Land O Lakes butter with canola oil works well for this)
- 1.5 cups firmly packed Domino’s light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup cane sugar
- 2 jumbo eggs
- 1.5 cups pureed (or canned) pumpkin
- 1 teaspoon pure extract vanilla
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 2 cups all purpose, unbleached King Arthur flour
- 1 cup semi-sweet Ghirardelli chocolate chips
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 375
- In large bowl, beat together butter and sugar until creamy.
- Add eggs, pumpkin, vanilla, sea salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg, stirring until thoroughly blended.
- Add flour 1 cup at a time and beat until well-mixed.
- Mix chocolate chips evenly throughout the dough.
- Drop 1/4 cup dough for each cookie onto aluminum cookie sheets, about six per sheet.
- Bake for 15-16 minutes until light golden brown.
- Yield: 20-24 three inch cookies
Eat warm, five minutes out of the oven or let cool completely and serve with ice cream. Sheila had a bowl of ice cream with a cookie and I made an ice cream sandwich with two cookies. Both of us had pecan praline ice cream with the cookies.
Enjoy!
🙂
KNR, p. 67 “I like pie!”
I love a great dessert. Cake, cookies, pudding, ice cream – they’re all tasty, but for me, the best dessert is pie. Cream pies, chocolate pies, fruit pies, potato pies? Bring ‘em on. I’ll eat ‘em all. Except coconut. Never could get used to the texture.
Sheila’s grandmother made a great white sweet potato pie, but would not share her secret! She moved away and I can’t get my yearly fix, so just before Christmas, we baked until we got the taste just right. Sheila baked – I ate. I could eat a whole pie by myself, no problem. I found the white sweet potatoes at the farmer’s market, so Sheila could practice, practice. They have a milder, sweeter flavor than the orange ones and they’re also good baked.
White Sweet Potato Pie
Author: Sheila Kerrian
Recipe type: Dessert
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 6
Ingredients
- 3-4 large white sweet potatoes (yields 2 cups mashed white sweet potatoes)
- ¾ cup white cane sugar
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla
- 2 jumbo eggs
- 5 oz. evaporated milk
- 5 oz. half & half
- 1 unbaked deep dish pie shell
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425.
- Peel, then cut, 3-4 large white sweet potatoes into two inch chunks, and boil until sharp cooking fork can slide easily into the chunks (about 20 minutes, but don’t let them get squishy)
- Drain the potatoes thoroughly.
- Beat with electric mixer until consistency of stiff mashed potatoes.
- In large bowl, mix together 2 cups mashed potatoes and both sugars.
- One at a time, add sea salt, cinnamon, vanilla, eggs, evaporated milk and half & half.
- Mix until just blended.
- Pour into pie shell.
- Place on cookie sheet in center of oven.
- Bake at 425 for 15 minutes.
- Drop oven temperature to 350 and bake an additional 35 minutes or until center is set and knife inserted in middle comes out clean.
- Cool on pie rack for 1 hour.
- Serve with ice cream.
- Try to stop at one slice. 😉
Sheila’s family is from the South and she told me that white sweet potatoes are easily grown in home gardens down there.
Enjoy!
*Photo by Patti Phillips
KNR, p. 126 “75 Second Mookies”
I’ll admit it. I’ve got a sweet tooth. That’s not a secret, but the doc says I should drop ten pounds and that means cutting back on calories. No more eating a dozen cookies in one evening, or having two of those amazing chocolaty chocolate muffins for breakfast, or several of the Vegetarian Detective’s super brownies at one sitting. I could have gotten away with extra helpings of everything before I got sidelined from my very active job, but no more.
We plan a pretty balanced menu, with lots of fruits and veggies, but it’s the extra potatoes and slices of pie that do me in. Exercise burns some of it off, but pushing away from the table is the best diet plan out there.
The Doc and Sheila and I came up with a way to help me lose the weight and it’s mostly about reducing the desserts. She promised not to bake batches of three dozen cookies/muffins at a time and I promised not to hound her or sneak out to the bakery. The Doc admitted that I might feel deprived if I gave up dessert completely, so the new plan could include a daily ‘something’ for my sweet tooth – just not five daily ‘somethings.’ He hinted that fruit between meals might change my cravings, but I’m hedging my bets on that.
So, here’s what Sheila came up with: single serving cookies. That way, there won’t be yummy leftovers calling me from the kitchen, tempting me. She tells me the idea has been around for a long time, but she never had a reason to try it before.
I call them mookies, because to me they’re like a cross between a cookie and a muffin. So simple to make, not a lot of cleanup involved and I can make one myself. All you need is a microwave and a few ingredients and in less than ten minutes of prep and cooking time, you’ve got a dessert.
Chocolate Chip Mookie
Ingredients for Chocolate Chip Mookie
1 Tablespoon butter or margarine
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon Mexican vanilla extract
pinch sea salt
1 egg yolk
4 Tablespoons King Arthur’s cake flour
2 Tablespoons Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips
Pumpkin Mookie
Ingredients for Pumpkin Mookie
1 ½ Tablespoons butter or margarine
2 Tablespoons light brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon Mexican vanilla extract
pinch sea salt
1 egg yolk
1 ½ Tablespoons organic pumpkin puree
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4 Tablespoons King Arthur’s cake flour
2 Tablespoons Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips
(Topping is frozen vanilla yogurt and a sprinkle of cinnamon)
Double Chocolate Mookie
Ingredients for Double Chocolate Mookie
1 Tablespoon butter or margarine
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon Mexican vanilla extract
pinch sea salt
1 teaspoon Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa powder
1 egg yolk
4 Tablespoons King Arthur’s cake flour
2 Tablespoons Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips
Preparation for all varieties
Use a medium sized glass or ceramic mixing bowl.
Melt the butter for 20 seconds in the microwave. (Doesn’t have to be completely melted)
Add all ingredients for the chosen mookie to the melted butter.
Mix thoroughly using a fork.
Transfer mookie dough to a ramekin or other cup-sized glass or ceramic dish.
Place in microwave and cook for one minute + 15 seconds (75 seconds).
Serve immediately in the ramekin.
The ramekin will be hot, so handle with care.
*Photos by Patti Phillips