Pumpkin-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies (with Walnuts)

The weather is still dreary, and I have some leftover pumpkin puree in my fridge, so I decided to play with more pumpkin ideas. I came up with Pumpkin-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies! I stole borrowed lovingly used my beloved's oatmeal, so I had all the ingredients already in my house (he might not notice, right?) I searched far and wide for a good pumpkin oatmeal cookie recipe and came across a pretty fast and easy one at www.cooks.com. The link to the original recipe can be found here. I decided to tweak it a little bit and make half with walnuts and half without.

2 c flour
1 c (two sticks) butter, room temperature
1 c oatmeal
1 c pumpkin puree
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (I decided to add this. Love it!)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
1 c brown sugar (I used light brown sugar, and I didn't pack it... but feel free to pack it if you want your cookies a bit sweeter)
1/2 tsp salt
1 c chips or raisins (I used the semi-sweet chips from my cupcake recipe)
1 c chopped walnuts (I added these toooo)

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Cream butter, brown sugar, egg, vanilla, and pumpkin puree.
3. Combine dry ingredients (including nuts and chips) in a separate medium bowl.

My dry ingredients with the walnuts standing by
4. Add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture and mix well (at about low-medium speed)



5. Spoon balls of dough evenly onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Oh, yeah. You love my seasoned cookie sheet on the right
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove from pans and place on cooling racks to stop cooking process.












I cut the whole recipe in half (I beat the one egg and only used half as well), so I was able to make 15 tablespoon (cereal spoon)-sized cookies. They don't spread much while baking, so putting them about an inch or so apart on the cookie sheet is OK. I would guess that the recipe makes 4 dozen teaspoon (soup spoon)-sized cookies. They were so delicious, and they weren't overwhelmingly sweet. So which one did I like better? I must say, I enjoyed the one with walnuts. It added a nice crunchy texture. These would go perfectly with a cold glass of milk or the pumpkin spice coffee I recently acquired.

 Enjoy!

Pumpkin