Pumpkin Cookies!

Mmm... I love me some pumpkin cookies. I made some amazing pumpkin chocolate chip cookies in the fall, but I've really tried to only bake healthier recipes... and my recipe, it wasn't close to healthy. Well I finally found one that was healthy and modified it to fit me! Mmm!

Ally's Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Recipe

Prep Time: 30 min

Baking Time: 15 -18 minutes

Makes: 24 (large) cookies

Ingredients:

-15 oz pumpkin, mashed smooth

-1 Cup chocolate chips (I used regular chocolate chips, but could use vegan choc chips for vegan cookies!)

-1/4 Cup Rolled Oats

-1/2 Cup Agave Nectar

-1/2 Cup low fat margarine (for vegan recipe use Earth Balance... would have used, but didn't have any!)

-1 Egg (for vegan recipe use 2/3 cup Okara or 8oz Tofu blended... again didn't have any on hand... made too many tofu sesame snacks!)

-1 Cup whole wheat flour

-1 Cup unbleached flour

-2 tsp baking powder

-1 tsp baking soda

-3/4 tsp cinnamon

-1/2 tsp ginger

-1/2 tsp nutmeg

-1/4 tsp cloves

-1/2 tsp salt

-1 tbsp Vanilla extract

-1/2 Cup Flax Meal (optional... but I used it!)

Method:

-Preheat oven to 350F

-In a large bowl, combine wet ingredients

-In a separate bowl, stir together oats, flour, flax, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and salt

-Slowly add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and mix well. Add chocolate chips

-Drop by spoonful onto parchment lined or silicone mat

-Bake at 350F for 15 minutes

-Cool on a cooling rack

These cookies were delicious! They taste a lot like a pumpkin loaf with some delicious chocolate chips. You could add cranberries, walnuts, other types of nuts or choose to add nothing! I made them quite big, so they ended up taking more like 18 minutes to bake. They will be a more soft cookie (like a loaf), so don't expect them too get too firm in the oven. Some cookies don't really need to cool on a rack, but it would be best if these were (there's a lot of moisture in the cookies).

Enjoy!