Friday, September 01, 2006

Ahhh, September

September 1 is one of my favorite days of the whole year, because it means the end of the "summer" months and the beginning of the "autumn" months... and there are few things that I love more in the world than I love autumn. Never mind that it's still 85 degrees on a "cool" day here in Athens, Georgia. Never mind that I still pour sweat after walking 3/4 of a mile to class. September brings a promise of better things!

The reason for all the sentimental mush-mush: To celebrate September 1, I decided to bake pumpkin cookies! And better still, I decided to try concocting my own recipe. So I whipped these up in no time, and while the recipe could still use some tweaking to make it perfect, Bob and I were pretty darn happy with these!

Pumpkin Oatmeal Bites

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup old-fashioned oats
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
Scant 3/4 cup demerara sugar
2 tbs. pumpkin pie spice
1 cup pumpkin purée (I used canned)
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
Equivalent of 2 eggs (I used Ener-G)
2 teaspoons molasses
Walnuts, raisins, or dried cranberries (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Combine all the dry ingredients (through the spices) in a medium-sized bowl. Combine the wet ingredients in a separate small bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and fold together until well combined, adding in the walnuts or fruit, if using. Place by small spoonfuls onto a prepared baking sheet and bake for about 12 minutes. Makes 3 dozen.

These didn't spread out when they baked, which was fine with me. Also, they're not extremely sweet--they remind me of little pumpkin oatmeal breakfast bites or something (hence the name).

I'm crazy about pumpkin, so with fall fast approaching, you will probably start seeing more and more pumpkin recipes on here!

9 comments:

Dori said...

I'ma fall lover too. I love the weather, the produce, the upcoming celebrations... all of it.

Dr. Melissa West said...

I've been wanting to try pumpkin recipes for ages... cookies, waffles, muffins, you name it, I wanna try it! Do you think I can find canned pumpkin to save my life? NO! Where are you getting your canned pumpkin ( not pie filling, right?)

laura k said...

Melissa, I'm just finding regular canned pumpkin (not pie filling) at the grocery store. Strange that you can't find it... Around here I see it on the shelves pretty much all year round. I hope you have some luck soon!

KleoPatra said...

Yeah for pumpkin! I am a fan as well. Love the fresh stuff tho i've been known to use a can on occasion... I love fall as well, tho i am a fan of summer more...

Hope you have a great weekend!

laura k said...

I prefer fresh pumpkin too--I can't wait for them to be in-season!

Candi said...

Hi Laura! I love your blog and I linked you to mine so I have easy access to it! I came by and see I am linked here! AWWW! Thanks! :)

Your cookies look SO good. I love all the rolled oats in there! You made this up yourself?! WOW!! They really look great! Thanks for writing down the recipe and sharing!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I love pumpkin and Fall too. Unfortunately, I live in Florida so we miss out on the Fall (doesn't stop us from wearing boots and sweaters though in 85 degree weather!) I'll have to try your cookies -- what kind of sugar is demerara? Is that like Sucanet?

laura k said...

Midwest Vegan, demerara sugar is just a granulated raw sugar. I'm sure any kind of raw sugar you wanted to use would be fine--Sucanat, turbinado sugar, I think they're all along the same lines.

funwithyourfood said...

I love recipe concocting :)

good job there

Teddy