Pumpkin Oatmeal Chocolate-Chip Cookies

I spent the past week house sitting for my parents in rural, upstate New York. Which means I went through several bottles of wine, struggled to keep my sanity while waiting for pages to load on a dial-up internet connection, and spent my evenings watching crime-drama television. My days, however, were filled with baking and photography. My parents have a great kitchen. There’s plenty of counter space, tons of baking supplies, and all of the kitchen gadgets I could ever need. And then for photography, there’s the sun room . . .

Oh what a great room. And the cookies turned out super yummy. In my opinion, they’re a totally viable breakfast treat (oats!). The only disappointing thing about all of this was that I accidentally left all of these cookies (along with all of the pumpkin molasses cookies I also made) in a bag in the kitchen. Luckily, I have a mother who understands the importance of cookies, and she sent the off in the mail the next day.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Chocolate-Chip Cookies
(adapted from Pumpkin: A Superfood for All 12 Months of the Year)

yield: approximately 5 dozen

• 3 cups of oats
• 1 ½ cups of flour
• 1 cup of brown sugar
• ¾ cup of granulated sugar
• ¾ cup of pumpkin
• 1 cup (2 sticks) of butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp ginger
• 1 tsp cloves
• 1 ½ cups of chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350°. Combine butter and sugar until beat until fluffy. Add pumpkin, eggs, and vanilla and beat until well combined. Add all remaining ingredients except for the oats and chocolate chips and mix on low until a well-blended batter forms. Stir in oats and chips.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (it actually helps to use two, so you can prep one while the other is in the oven). Drop tablespoon-sized rounds of batter onto the sheet. These cookies don’t spread too much, so you can put them relatively close together. Bake 12-15 minutes, until you can see some light browning on the bottom. Cool on a wire rack.