Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Happy Friday! This week I'm sharing a fall favorite with you... pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. These are a great cookie to whip up this weekend and take with you wherever you're going for Thanksgiving! Inspired by my peanut butter cookies, I wanted to see if I could make a simple pumpkin spiced cookie that was just as good. And I'd say I almost got it: these cookies are very good, and almost by accident, very healthy! Like the peanut butter cookies, I add no oil, but instead of peanut butter I use pumpkin. So the cookie matrix (there I go, using science terms. Too much writing!) ended up fat free.

I also made a wonderful discovery on the chocolate chip front. Over the years, all too frequently I've found myself without chocolate chips when I want to make something with them. It probably has something to do with the fact that chocolate chips are so very delicious on their own that they have a hard time waiting around in my cupboard for the right recipe to come along. Anyways, when I was making these cookies for myself, I found that I was out of chocolate chips. However, I did have a generous amount of healthy fudge in the freezer from last week, so I decided to go for it and see if I could cut the fudge into chunks while frozen and mix those pieces into the cookies in place of chocolate chips. And it worked! These chocolate chunks melt and solidify nicely in baked goods. So feel free to try that variation if you're feeling adventurous!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

1c whole wheat flour
1c brown sugar
1/2t baking soda
1T (or more!) pumpkin pie spice
1/2c pumpkin puree
1/3c vanilla soy or almond milk
1c chocolate chips (or 3 pieces healthy fudge, cut into chocolate chunks)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Mix the dry ingredients, then add the wet. Once everything is relatively combined, fold in the chocolate chips. Drop rounded teaspoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet. This should make ~25 small cookies. Bake for 15 minutes, or until the edges just start to brown. Because of the pumpkin, these are a very moist cookie. If you prefer drier cookies, keep them in a paper bag, rather an a sealed plastic container. Enjoy!