Daily Archives: October 23, 2015

Post 234: Israelis support our soldiers – Last Friday at Oz veGaon and gave chizuk to the security forces on the road the over 100’s ways one can someone in Hebrew on a poster in Dr. Oz Shapira’s office at Hadassah Hospital

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies with Walnuts and Dried Cranberries - fall flavors with a hint of spice, these easy to make cookies are tender and delicious.

It’s fall!  Time for all things pumpkin and squash.  Today I decided to make up a batch of pumpkin oatmeal cookies.  I just cooked up a monster Galeux d’eysines (the bigger brother of the one in the photo), which makes a beautiful deep orange puree.  Some will go into the freezer, but we’re also going to experiment with some more pumpkin recipes.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies with Walnuts and Dried Cranberries - fall flavors with a hint of spice, these easy to make cookies are tender and delicious.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies with Walnuts and Dried Cranberries

Dry Ingredients:

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour – I prefer King Arthur’s.  You could also fresh ground soft white wheat, or a gluten free flour blend; to make gluten free use ground pecans, ground pumpkin seeds, rice flour,teff flour or oat flour
  • 1 cup uncooked oatmeal – quick cooking for a softer cookie, old fashioned or steel cut for a chewier cookie
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon sea salt or Real Salt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, preferably organic
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom, preferably organic – you can substitute more cinnamon if you don’t have cardamom
  • 1 teas ground nutmeg

Wet mix ingredients:

  • 1 cup (8 ounces) tofu cream cheese
  • 1/ 3/4 cup rice milk mixed with fruit puree
  • 1 large chicken egg or small duck egg, 1/4 cup flax meal
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 cup home cooked pumpkin (squash) puree or 1 cup canned solid pack pumpkin

Ingredients to add last:

  • 1 cup dried cranberries or dried tart cherries
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans, preferably as crispy nuts

Directions

Heat oven to 350°. Lightly grease baking sheets or line with parchment paper or reusable parchment sheets or tins and my “cookies” are soft like muffins.

In a medium bowl, mix together dry ingredients and set aside.  (If you don’t want to dirty a bowl for this, you can dump them straight onto the top of your wet mixture, but this ensures they are thoroughly mixed.)

In a large bowl or food processor , mix flax meal with 1/2 cup fruit puree until well blended. Mix in the egg, vanilla, and pumpkin and additional rice milk.

Mixing pumpkin into the pumpkin oatmeal cookies

Add the dry ingredients and stir gently until blended. Stir cranberries or tart cherries and chopped nuts together. At this point you can add more flour or more rice milk if the batter is not to you liking. It should be like lumpy mashed potatoes-don’t over mix.

pumpkin oatmeal cookie dough with nuts and cherries
I hold incorporating into batter. I want to see the actual texture to see if I need more flour or more rice milk

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheets.

pumpkin oatmeal cookies ready to bake
Spinkle your topping on now and press gently

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until lightly browned around the edges and set.  Don’t over bake!  You can use Airbake pans if you’re nervous about burning the cookies.  These are tender cookies, so you’ll need to let them cool for a few minutes on the pan to set up before moving them to a wire rack to cool completely.

freshly baked pumpkin oatmeal cookies

Makes about 4 dozen cookies. I turn mine in the muffin tins and bake an additional 10 minutes.

This recipe was adapted from About.com.

These cookies were even a hit with the boys, who normally aren’t big on oatmeal cookies.  You can see it’s loaded with goodies.  :-)

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies with Walnuts and Dried Cranberries - fall flavors with a hint of spice, these easy to make cookies are tender and delicious.