Good Pumpkins and Bad Pumpkins

In honor of Halloween which features one of my favorite seasonal foods/decorations, today's post is my two recent experiences with pumpkins.

We'll start with the bad side. Andy and I carved our pumpkin last night, and in case you have delusions about our artistic abilities, we equal about a 1st grader if you add our talents together. It didn't help that I couldn't find our pumpkin carving knife (it must have been a victim of the move...though I don't know what we did last year (the historic election has clouded my memory of Halloween 2008). The result was this wonky and sad jack-o-lantern, (perhaps) made worse overnight by nibbling squirrels.

Now for the good news. A friend from work passed along what just might be the perfect fall cookie, and I'm spreading the word.

Pumpkin Cookies

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose baking flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla

Directions
Preheat oven to 375. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg. With mixer, beat butter in a large mixing bowl on medium speed for 30 seconds. Add brown sugar and beat until fluffy. Add egg, canned pumpkin, and vanilla. Beat well. Add dry ingredients and beat until well blended. Drop from teaspoon onto cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake 8-10 minutes.

These cookies are fast and easy and result in perfect little bites of pumpkin bread-like cookies. This recipe actually calls for 1 cup raisins and 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, but neither my friend nor I ever add those (the horror of ruining these cookies with raisins!). She likes to make them into football cookies, so she makes them in an oval shape and then adds white icing to look like the laces. The icing is a simple confectioner sugar/milk icing. Last time I made these, I just sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top before baking. Next time, I think I am going to mix up the spices a bit to make it more of a pumpkin pie seasoning with ginger, but I love the combo of vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon in the original recipe.