Pumpkin spice cookies are a great way to celebrate fall!

One of my favorite things about fall is the abundance of winter squash and pumpkins at the farmers market. They’re such an awesome food – they grow very abundantly in most gardens, they store extremely well, they can feed a lot of people, and they are a welcome ingredient in most vegetable recipes.

Squashes and pumpkins are an important part of most local-food centered diets, because they can be kept for a long time in cool storage, meaning fresh food for you in the winter. Buy cases of squash in the fall and store them to stretch your food budget and stock your pantry with nutritious goodness.

When we go to the farmers market during the fall harvest season, we make sure to stock up on pie pumpkins, butternut, red kuri, acorn, and spaghetti squash. In the fall and winter, we have squash several times a week, and with four of us eating (and one nursing), one large squash only lasts for one meal, so we stock up on them.

This year, we’ve been eating a locally grown traditional Hopi squash, and our neighbor gave us a Hungarian Finger Fruit squash – a kind of bizarre looking white squash with little finger-like projections along the sides.

Random squash factoid: The squash fruit is classified as a pepo by botanists, which is a special type of berry with a thick outer wall or rind formed from hypanthium tissue fused to the exocarp; the fleshy interior is composed of mesocarp and endocarp. The pepo, derived from an inferior ovary, is characteristic of the Squash Family.

Most of the squash we buy go into savory dishes, like a stir-fry or soup, or vegetable burritos, and the rest go to feed my sweet tooth.

Yes, vegetable cookies…

Most people love zucchini bread and pumpkin pie, so I figured what the heck, how about a pumpkin cookie?

I thought to myself that if I could only discover the perfect pumpkin cookie recipe, it would be one giant leap toward world peace (because who doesn’t love dessert?). So I followed my humanitarian ideals in order to discovery for the world if a truly fantastic pumpkin cookie was really possible.

Finally, after years of baking and tasting and recipe-tweaking, I’m proud to be able to share this pumpkin spice cookie recipe with the world. I call them Ridiculously Good Pumpkin Spice Cookies, and they are now the standard for fall desserts at Natural Papa headquarters.

Not only are they delicious, but this fabulous recipe will have you eating tons of pumpkins and squash long before the traditional Thanksgiving pumpkin pies. Oh yeah, they’re also vegan (if you must have your eggs, add two liquid chickens eggs instead of the egg replacer).

Ridiculously Good Pumpkin Spice Cookies

Preheat oven to 325°F

Ingredients (all organic, yes?):

• 1 cup cooked pumpkin (cut in half, scoop out seeds, place cut side down on baking sheet and bake at 350 until soft. Peel and mash or blend the pumpkin.)
• 1/2 cup coconut oil (or butter, or even olive oil)
• 3/4 cup unrefined sugar (or maple syrup or honey)
• Egg replacer equivalent for 2 eggs
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Mix all of the ingredients together, adjust spices to your taste, and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Drop by the spoonful onto greased cookie sheets and bake for 8 to 10 minutes.

Try substituting sweet potatoes or butternut squash (or any winter squash) for the pumpkin for a different taste, put them in muffin tins, or bake in a loaf pan.

They’re incredibly tasty (ridiculously good, even), and you can eat all you want, because they’re made from vegetables!

[Actually, you can't eat all you want, because of course you'll need to share some with the wife and kids, right? And anything you read on this blog is purely conjecture, so don't tell your doctor I said you could eat all you want.]

Image: ▌ÇP▐ at Flickr

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