Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

Finally! Finally we get to my favorite thing that I made all week: the Vegan with a Vengeance pumpkin oatmeal cookies. These things are so fricking good that they make you want to run around your office floor while singing operatic music at the top of your lungs and leaping joyously like a ballerina, they make violins want to swell ecstatically, they make birds want to alight on your shoulders and beams of sunlight break through the clouds to beam down on you and you only, they make you want to howl orgasmically and make all the prudes' faces turn beet-red, they make you wanna stop in the middle of the street and start break-dancing or doing the robot, they make you want to make sweet sweet love to them. That's how good they are.

Seriously though, when I brought them into work, I described them as tasting "like you're chewing on a nice big squishy wad of autumn." And that's precisely what they taste like, all warm and yummy with the scents of pumpkin and cinnamon and nutmeg. Good good stuff. And everyone who tried them loved them as well. I even had one person randomly mutter to me as I was leaving the other day, "Man, this day somehow just isn't as good without pumpkin cookies." And it's true--if every day were a pumpkin-oatmeal cookie day, the world would be a much better place.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 c. flour


• 1 1/3 c. rolled oats


• 1 t. baking soda


• 3/4 t. salt


• 1 t. cinnamon


• 1/2 t. nutmeg



• 1 2/3 c. sugar


• 2/3 c. canola oil


• 2 T. molasses


• 1 c. canned pumpkin, or cooked pureed pumpkin


• 1 t. vanilla


• optional: 1 T ground flax seeds



• 1 c. walnuts, finely chopped


• 1/2 c. raisins

Directions
Preheat oven to 350. Have ready 2 greased baking sheets.

Mix together flour, oats, baking soda, salt and spices.

In a seperate bowl, mix together sugar, oil, molasses, pumpkin and vanilla (and flax seeds if using) until very well combined. Add dry ingredients to wet in 3 batches, folding to combine. Fold in walnuts and raisins.

Drop by tablespoons onto greased cookie sheets. They don't spread very much so they can be placed only an inch apart. Flatten the tops of the cookies with a fork or with your fingers, to press into cookie shape. Bake for 16 minutes at 350. If you are using two sheets of cookies on 2 levels of your oven, rotate the sheets halfway through for even baking. You'll have enough batter for 4 trays.

Remove from oven and get cookies onto a wire rack to cool. These taste best when they've had some time to cool and set. They taste even better the next day!

from the PPK