Pumpkin Spice Cookies

This was the recipe I chose for the Cookie Swap that Sarah and I hosted this weekend. It's based somewhat on a bread recipe from my Mom. I fudged some numbers to make them more cookie-ish from online recipes and threw in a few extra things myself. They were great. We got full fast so I didn't try, but I would anticipate them being excellent with vanilla ice cream or cream cheese frosting.

Ingredients:

1 cup	dark brown sugar
1 cup	white sugar
2 sticks	softened butter
3 cups	whole wheat all purpose flour
2 tsp	baking soda
1/2 tsp	salt
1 can	pumpkin puree
2	eggs
5 tsp	orange marmalade
1 tsp	vanilla extract
1 tsp	cinnamon
1/2 tsp	ginger
1/4 tsp	nutmeg
1/4 tsp	ground cloves
1/4 tsp	allspice
1 cup	mini dark chocolate chips (regular works too, I guess)
1 cup	dried cranberries

Procedure:
Mix all ingredients. Cook in a hot oven until done.





Really there's not much more to it than that. I guess there's an order in which you're supposed to combine things; I'll tell you what I did, which worked out, but I suspect the exact order isn't that important. However, if you're doing all your stirring by hand like I am, this will make your life easier.

Preheat your oven to 350.

Soften the butter and mix it into a paste with the sugars. If you put them all in the same bowl before realizing that the butter is hard, leave it on top of the oven to melt. If you put sugar in the microwave for too long, bad things will happen to it.

Mix the flour, salt, and baking soda.

Mix the pumpkin, eggs, vanilla, marmalade, and spices.

Combine the butter mixture with the pumpkin mixture. Mix well to make sure you don't end up with lumps of spice. Gradually add the flour mixture. It will be a pretty wet batter but not soupy enough to settle after you mix it -- it will hold peaks. Mix in the chips and cranberries.

Put heaping tablespoons onto a buttered pan and bake until they bounce back when poked, about 20 minutes.

This recipe is huge. My cookies got incrementally larger as I went on making them since I realized I didn't want to do three rounds in the oven. They ended up about biscuit sized by the end. If you prefer smaller cookies, go for it, but don't cook them for as long.

They are very bready, no surprise, but really tasty. They are soft and moist without being overwhelmingly sweet. I think I liked them more than most. They weren't as popular as the chocolate overload cookies. That was predictable, though. A lot of people are bonkers for chocolate. I prefer these.

Moroccan Chicken

Hello again, readers. Things have been very busy lately. I'm back now, though, and hope to resume updating semi-regularly.

This recipe is based on the internet. Just punch "chickpeas turmeric chicken" into Google and loads of hits come up. They're all pretty consistent and I stayed pretty faithful to them, with slight changes as always. The inspiration for this dish came from Anna's Halloween concoction. I don't remember precisely what was in it other than chicken, chickpeas, and turmeric so that's what I went from.

Ingredients:

1 lb	chicken, diced
1 can	chickpeas, drained
2	large carrots, sliced
3 stalks	celery, sliced
2	small onions, chopped
1 can	tomatoes
1.5 cups	broth
4 cloves	garlic, minced
1	green pepper, chopped
0.5	turmeric
0.5	paprika
0.75 tsp	cumin
0.25 tsp	cinnamon
0.5 tsp	oregano
2 tsp	salt
0.5 tsp	ginger

Procedure:

This is a very easy recipe. Fry the chicken, onion, garlic, and carrots until the vegetables begin to soften. Add the rest of the ingredients. Cook until it's a stewy consistency. Serve over couscous or brown rice; serves five.

One thing I did omit was spiciness. This recipe would have appreciated come cayenne pepper (which most recipes used). I made the substitution of a green bell pepper for zucchini. I really think this was a good call; not only are zucchini creepy, but I don't think it would have blended well with the rest of the goop.

I only used one can of chickpeas; some recipes used even less. However, they're really what makes the dish exciting. I would recommend using a can and a half, and cutting the carrots smaller, to really emphasize their place in the dish. The celery was fine, but I guess celery is always just fine. I wasn't excited to have it in there, but it didn't detract from the dish. It played a very inconspicuous part.