Summer's Last Hurrah- Pumpkin Ginger Cookies

these waited until October to bloom!

When summer finally ends and  the rain and cooler weather comes to Northern California I have to chuckle as everyone pulls out their scarves and jeans to wear, puts on their boots, and can finally justify wearing a jacket. Some even find an umbrella and dust it off and put it to use. It's a bit funny to Jörgen and myself since he comes from the land of Northern Sweden where winter means driving across frozen lakes, and I come from Northern Nevada where high desert winters are very cold, sagebrush gets dusted with snow, and there always seems be a harsh wind blowing.

But, I must say that I love the winters here. I plant lettuce and kale and garlic  in my garden and we have the most beautiful fall leaves everywhere, and, after the first rain the dry grass everywhere becomes lush and green.  One of the best things about our fall is the  remaining flowers arrayed among the pumpkins left over from Halloween. Now that we are looking at December right around the corner, I've decided to give my remaining pumpkins over for fall cookies and pies.

The way I cook a pumpkin is to cut it open, spoon out all of the seeds, place the pumpkin open side down on a cookie sheet, cover it all well with foil, and then bake at about 350 until it is very soft. Next I scoop out all of the insides into a bowl. Here is where I would highly recommend a food processor to puree the pumpkin. I'm anxiously  waiting to add more attachments but for now I simply put my pumpkin chunks into the Ankersrum mixer and ran it on low speed and it worked fine to make a soft puree.

mashing and mixing pumpkin

The following recipe is one of our absolute  favorites. If you don't have  an actual pumpkin  then the canned stuff is always good. It also makes for a more orange colored cookie. But, using what I have around is what I'm all about! So, here's my recipe, and here's to the last of the summer's amazing pumpkins!

Pumpkin Ginger Cookies

Heat oven to 375

1 cup of sugar
1 cup of pumpkin puree-canned or home made
1/2 cup of shortening or butter
2 cups of  all-purpose flour or whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice mix-this is optional but great for extra flavor
1/4 teaspoon of  grated  fresh ginger
1/4 teaspoon of salt

Mix sugar, pumpkin, butter or shortening together.  Add the flour,baking powder,baking soda spices and salt. Stir in the fresh ginger.

Drop by spoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet-or a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
Bake until light brown.About 8-10 minutes. Remove immediately and let cool.

brown glaze

This glaze on top just makes them near perfect!

In a small sauce pan add:

1/4 cup of butter
2 cups of powdered sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla-I use vanilla sugar when I have it in stock.
1 to 2 tablespoons of milk

Heat the butter on a medium heat until it is a light brown. Stir in the powdered sugar and vanilla. Stir in milk unil smooth. If using vanilla sugar instead of vanilla extract you may need to add a bit more milk. It should be smooth enough to pour over the cookies but thick enough that it doesn't all run off.

This is all  I had left for the  photograph!

and this is what happened to the other pumpkins!!