Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!...and Pumpkin Spiced Cookies

Today is officially Thanksgiving so Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We had our family dinner on Sunday and it was delicious! I am actually writing some of this post ahead of time so I am still nursing quite the food baby. I know for some people Thanksgiving is all about the turkey. Not so much for me. I am all about the sides. Mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, peas and mushrooms....drool. I look forward to these classics every year.

Thanksgiving dinner this year was at my Aunt's house in Waterloo. They live in a beautiful neighbourhood with lots of very large old trees. This makes for beautiful scenery for a Thanksgiving feast. It was so warm out so we got to sit outside. The sun was shining and there were barely clouds in the sky! Here are some pictures from our day of thanks...

I am thankful for figs.

I am thankful for those who can carve a turkey


I am thankful for my aunt and cousin for cooking all the delicious food!




I am thankful for roasted red peppers from my Tatone's garden.

I am thankful for calorie induced comas (not really actually).

I am thankful the live music at every family gathering.

I am also thankful for cookies!

We had vegan chocolate raspberry (by cousin Diana)

Oatmeal, biscotti, pizzelli (by Nonna), and pumpkin spice cookies (by me). The pumpkin spice cookies was a hybrid of two recipes. The cookie was very soft and almost muffin like. I would love to play around with the recipe some more to make a crispier cookie which I much prefer. Here is the recipe as it stands so far.

Pumpkin Spice Cookies adapted from the Voracious Vegan and Vegan by Valerie

¾ cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole-wheat flour

½ cup wheat bran

1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp nutmeg
2 Tbsp vanilla
1 cup canned pumpkin puree

1/4 cup butter
¼ cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar

granulated sugar for coating cookie

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 2 cookie sheets.

2. Mix dry ingredients.

3. Mix wet ingredients. It is difficult to mix the butter well into the wet ingredients.

4. Mix wet ingredients into the flour mixture in two portions. Mix well until fully blended. The batter is pretty sticky and wet (kind of like cake batter). It also tastes delicious by the way.

5. Roll into 1 inch diameter balls and roll lightly in sugar. Place on cookie sheet and flatten with a fork in a crisscross pattern.

6. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Allow to cool before removing from the pan.

These cookies are chewy and soft, if you are into that sort of thing. Next time I am going to cut back on the oil and butter and see where that takes me. I will let you know how it turns out. Since I have so much leftover pumpkin puree I may just make another batch this week ;)

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving and I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving too!