Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice

In the words of Steve Jobs, who took them from the incomparable Mark Twain, "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." Sorry to disappoint you, Gentle Reader.

Tuesday found me nicely recovered from my earlier melancholy, so I got my reenergized arse into the kitchen to whip up something pumpkiny, which I'd been wanting to do for a while. Eschewing some of the recipes I found in the Taste of Home Halloween Food & Fun special issue, I dug out a recipe card for fat-free pumpkin raisin oatmeal cookies tucked in the back amongst the other untried recipes. I failed to record the source for this recipe. I suspect it might have come from Hubpages.com; as I look over the page, it seems awfully familiar.

Fat-Free Pumpkin Raisin Oatmeal Cookies1 C canned pumpkin
1 C brown sugar
4 egg whites
1 1/2 C flour
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t cloves
3 C rolled oats
1 C raisins

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
   
2. In a large bowl, mix the pumpkin and brown sugar, then beat in the egg whites.
   
3. Gradually mix in the flour, baking soda and spices.
   
4. Stir in the oats and raisins until evenly moistened.
   
5. Place dollops of dough onto cookie sheet, or press lightly into a jelly roll pan to make cookie bars.
   
6. Bake 10-20 minutes for cookies, 20-25 minutes for cookie bars.

Sorry I have no nutritional information or recipe yield to offer. I'm sure you can track down your own nutritional calculator online and figure this stuff out if you're that curious.

The Faudie's Futzings

• As I was emailing this recipe to the younger sister yesterday, I realized I mistakenly used a whole can (15 oz.) instead of a single cup. I can't imagine that one measly cup of solid pack pumpkin is going to be enough for all the dry ingredients, though. Three cups of oats and 1.5 cups of flour is an awful lot of dry stuff, Gentle Reader.
  
• As usual, I substituted Splenda Brown Sugar Blend for the brown sugar, and I replaced the all-purpose flour with three-fourths of a cup of white whole wheat flour and three-fourths of a cup of whole wheat flour.
  
• I sprinkled cinnamon atop the dough once I got it into the jelly roll pan (after first making the mistake of putting it into a 13" x 9" cake pan, which was stuffed damn near to overflowing with dough). Why? Because I feared the nutmeg and cloves would be too strong. After my first culinary misadventure with microwave carrot halwa that left my microwave reeking of cloves for weeks (yes, Gentle Reader, that stench lingered long after I'd cleaned it out), I just can't take a lot of cloves in anything. To me, half a teaspoon of the stuff combined with half a teaspoon of nutmeg borders on too much. So I sprinkled additional cinnamon atop the dough in hopes of tipping the flavor scale in cinnamon's favor. It didn't work so much. Next time I'll just use a quarter of a teaspoon each of nutmeg and cloves. Maybe I'll throw in a quarter of a teaspoon of cardamom, which is in the same family as cinnamon, if memory serves.

While I believe the 20 minutes these babies spent in the oven was the right amount of time, the bars came out awfully tough and dry-chewy, not moist-chewy, which was a total bummer. I blame the whole wheat flours. I know I'm supposed to increase the amount of liquid ingredients when I use whole wheat flours, but I'd already (unknowingly at the time) used too much pumpkin, which is moist. I'm not sure that adding more liquid egg white is the right thing to do either.

To solve the dryness problem, I dug out of the pantry a jar of pumpkin-pecan butter the husband and I acquired at Williams-Sonoma last fall (or perhaps in the fall of 2006). The stuff tastes very similar to Mum's pumpkin mush (make pumpkin pie filling, except a bit more flavorful, put it in a meatloaf pan, sprinkle it with a streussel, bake it, top it with a same-sized portion of homemade whipped cream, stir it all together--that's pumpkin mush), hence the reason we splurged and got a jar. But the pumpkin spice goodness of the pecan-pumpkin butter fits perfectly with the pumpkin spice and oatmeal-raisin goodness of these bars, thus solving the moisture problem.

If you don't live near a Williams-Sonoma or can't afford the pecan-pumpkin butter (which is our current situation, so we're portion out our jar very carefully), consider whipping out the fat-free caramel ice cream topping. The caramel works surprisingly well with the bars. Then again, I'm a sucker for caramel and could probably team it successfully (at least for my taste buds) with damn near anything.

Bon appetit!

Happier Financial News

No, the economy isn't magically turning around, Gentle Reader. Fat chance with that one. No, this is good financial news for the residents of Chez Boeckman-Walker: I might have another freelancing gig.

The fine folks at ParentsDigest.com need an editor to look over its parenting book summaries, and the person hiring thought I'd work well. I did one summary yesterday and am now waiting to speak with my contact about how I did. The pay is pretty good and the work is pretty interesting. Keep your fingers crossed!