Dark Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

The date was Tuesday, October 26, 2010. But, the day was National Pumpkin Day.

Only, it seems that some are less excited about it than others. I won’t mention names. 

Ahem, ahem…

Doesn’t she just look stuck up?

Regardless, I was more than eager to celebrate the holiday.

Unfortunately, my original idea was soured when my pumpkin didn’t quite fit into the breakfast bowl.

Sigh.

So, I put the pumpkin aside to go with a more standard bowl of oatmeal.

Consumed: 1/3 C oats cooked with water and then mixed with peanut butter, sugar-free grape jelly and blueberry-flavored crasins.

Only slightly crushed by my pumpkin-for-breakfast fail, I found the strength to go on and conjure up other ideas for pumpkin goods. Because, what else would I possibly be thinking about during class?

Still stumped on just how I wanted to celebrate, I went for a sure way to clarify my thoughts: working out.

I had planned on running outside, but tornado-force winds deterred me from that plan. Instead, I went for sweat-breaker on the elliptical and short run on my University’s indoor track.

Lunch was another semi-standard, but is accompanied with a funny story: The steamer vegetables were actually what I packed for dinner last Tuesday, but got too sick to eat. No need to worry about me regressing into illness again, though. The steamer was properly chilling in the newsroom fridge all week.

Consumed: Green Giant’s Garden Vegetable Blend, a Flat Out tortilla and classic orange.

As a result of daylong anticipation building, I practically broke into another jog to get home after class.

I had an idea. It wasn’t extremely original. It wasn’t excessively fancy. But it did involve dark chocolate, pumpkin and the word “cookie,” so I knew it’d be good.

Still, I was in the mood to be a little experimental, so I adapted another recipe to be vegan and lower-carb. Compared with the original, these were a little more cake-like. But, when has that ever been a bad thing?

Dark Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1/2 C whole-wheat flour (add up to 1 C more flour for less cakey cookies)
• 1/2 C all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• 1 t baking soda
• 1/4 t salt
• 1 1/2 t cinnamon
• 1 1/2 t pumpkin pie spice
• 2 flax eggs (can substitute two eggs)
• 3/4 C sugar
• 2 T vegan buttery spread, melted (can substitute butter)
• 1/4 C unsweetened applesauce
• 1 C canned pumpkin
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 1 C dark chocolate chips

Directions:

• In medium-sized bowl, combine flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. Stir in dark chocolate chips.
• In another, larger bowl, combine flax eggs and sugar. Then, add in melted buttery spread, applesauce, pumpkin and vanilla.
• Pour half of flour mixture into bowl with pumpkin mixture. Stir to combine. All the other half and finish combining.
• Chill in refrigerator for 15 minutes. Then, scoop 1/4 C sized spoonfuls of batter onto greased cookie sheet. Bake in 325 degree oven for at least 20 minutes, or until firm to the touch.
• Once removing from the oven, allow to cool on the baking sheet for five minutes. Then, transfer to cooling rack to finish cooling.

And, (would you believe it?) someone was finally in the mood for some pumpkin-indulgence.

Too bad. Beggars can’t be choosers, because I was already planning to bring the cookies in to share with my fellow copy editors for the night.

At least they were appreciative…

I rounded out my meal with some much-needed servings of fruit and veggies…

Consumed: Raw carrots and broccoli. Apple slices, previously doused with lemon juice to avoid oxidation, which were then dipped into non-fat vanilla Greek yogurt and peanut butter.

I ended up not consuming the Kashi bar in favor of another cookie (or two).

After all, it wasn’t National Kashi Day.

Questions: Did you (either knowingly or unknowingly) celebrate National Pumpkin Day? Do you celebrate any other random “National Day’s” throughout the year?

Who knew there are so many “Days” to celebrate? And, thank goodness I checked this calendar out, because I now know that October 29 is National Oatmeal Day… Two days to prepare!

Abnormalities

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not exactly “normal.”

Although I’m generally able to mold to appearances enough to fit with society, I am proud of my quirks.

Fortunately, there seems to be another person who is able to tolerate my abnormalities…

As long as he gets some delicious baked goods out of it…

Speaking of which, that is one of my top abnormalities. While friends are out celebrating the weekend with seasonal pumpkin-flavored cocktails, I’m more interested in the real deal.

Dark Chocolate Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:

• 1 C whole-wheat flour
• 1/2 C all-purpose flour
• 1/2 C sugar
• 1/4 C brown sugar
• 1 t baking soda
• 1 1/2 t pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 C canned pumpkin
• 1/2 C unsweetened applesauce
• 2 flax eggs (can substitute two whole eggs)
• 1/4 C water
• 1/2 t vanilla
• 1/2 C dark chocolate chips

Directions:

• In a medium-sized bowl, mix the flours, sugars, salt, pumpkin pie spice and baking soda. Add in the dark chocolate chips. (Hint: That way they don’t sink to the bottom of the pan when everything is mixed together.)
  
• In a large bowl, mix the pumpkin, applesauce, flax eggs, water, and vanilla.
• Add half of the flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and combine. Add the other half of flour mixture and combine, but don’t over-mix.
• Pour into well-greased loaf pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 60-70 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Turn loaf out onto cooling rack.

Although delicious, pumpkin bread does not a healthy dinner make.

So, I made do with what was in the fridge by throwing together a delicious meal to share with Dan.

Consumed: Lemon sautéed broccoli, tossed with whole-wheat pasta and a sprinkle of cheese. Dan was in charge of some sun-dried tomato scrambled eggs. We also had some warm butternut squash salad on the side.

As if that wasn’t enough deliciousness for the night, the high temperature for the day had hit 90+ degrees and we had a coupon for free frozen yogurt.

OK, maybe it wasn’t so “abnormal” for me to take that offer up…

Question: What are you “abnormal” about?

I could list quite a few things, but some of the most noticeable are my obsessions with presidents and that I spend Saturday running 11 miles… Which I am about to do… Now.