You may recall that we received a small pumpkin in our CSA in the last few weeks of its run. It sat outside on our stoop with our larger pumpkins & looked nice and pretty for October. After Halloween though, it became fair game for any human or animal to consume (we had one pumpkin fall victim to some sort of wild animal – it chewed a hole right through it!). Thus I decided to bring it into the house to see if we could bake something with it.

I followed Sarah’s directions on how to take apart & cook pumpkin. Instead of canning it, I put it into a plastic container, since I knew I would be using it within the week. Her directions made the pumpkin dissection easier than how I had done it before. I’m thankful that now I have the knowledge for processing pumpkin, and probably won’t ever have to buy canned pumpkin again if I can help it.

We used the pumpkin up in some pumpkin cookies; a team effort of both the Hubs and I.

Iced Pumpkin Cookies – adapted from Allrecipes.com

Cookies:

• 2.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 stick butter, softened
• 1.5 cups white sugar
• 1/2 small pie pumpkin, pureed (about 1 cup)
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350*. Combine flour & spices; set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter & sugar. Add pumpkin, egg, & vanilla. Beat until creamy. Gradually add in dry ingredients & mix well.
3. Drop on cookie sheet in tablespoonfuls.
4. Bake 15-20 minutes. Makes quite a few cookies (I forgot to count)
5. One the cookies have completely cooled, frost with icing:
   • 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
   • 1.5 tbsp milk
   • 1/2 tbsp butter
   • 1/2 tsp vanilla
   • *Mix the ingredients together in a plastic baggie. Cut off the tip of one end – easy DIY icing bag!

Don’t store the cookies like this. The icing will melt away. Oops!

The house smelled absolutely heavenly while these were baking! I highly recommend these to anyone who wants to try cooking with pumpkin.

For the sake of our waistlines, Hubs brought one tub of cookies to work, and we kept the others. These were especially good – however, they only keep for about a week; after that, they start to dry out. Which in our house, usually means one thing: I didn’t eat nearly enough of them! 🙂