Screw Starbucks

I know everybody gets all meth-addict crazy when the pumpkin spice lattes are in season again.  A few weeks ago, I discovered it is now a hashtag (#PSL, because why would you bother with all those other letters?).  My opinion?  If you're slurping your pumpkin pie through a plastic lid, and saturating it with caffeine, you have a problem.  Whether it's with caffeine or with pumpkin, I couldn't guess, but if it's with pumpkin, there are plenty of other options.

I made my first pumpkin pie when I lived in Oregon.  Because I'm a great big nerd, I wanted to make it with real pumpkin.  Because I'm a great big idiot, I had no idea how much real pumpkin was needed for a single pie, and after I had rendered the enormous gourd I'd purchased into goop, my freezer was full of bright orange slurm.  I did the only reasonable thing and started looking for pumpkin recipes.  I also made a lot of pies that winter.

Whenever I have an oddball ingredient I want to exhaust, I tend to first look in my chocolate chip cookie compendium, because you really can't go wrong with more cookies.  More to the point, the index is well organized, so I can search for a specific ingredient, and then find the recipe.  You'd be surprised how poorly-organized the indices are in many of my cookbooks.  It's very disappointing.

Spicy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 C flour
4 t baking powder
1 T cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1/4 t ginger (I usually heap the spoon so high that it's closer to 1/2 t.  Suit yourself)
1 t salt
1/2 C shortening
1 C sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
1 C pumpkin puree (make it yourself or buy a can and portion it out, but don't buy pumpkin pie filling--that's different)
1 C chocolate chips
(I've also added 1 C chopped pecans, because I know some people who don't consider a pumpkin pie proper unless it's a praline pumpkin pie)

1. Oven to 350F, Mr. Sulu!
2. Cream the shortening and sugar.  Beat in the eggs and pumpkin.  Blend in the dry ingredients.  Add the chips. (aren't cookies easy??)
3. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto greased (or parchment-lined) sheets (as a test, because this precaution is not always necessary, I tried it without the parchment paper this time.  I still got cookies instead of a goddamned mess, but the bottoms were a little rough once I got them off the sheet.  Use the parchment paper, but if you're ready to go into the oven and just discovered you're out--as I sometimes do--don't fret.).  Bake for about 15 minutes.
4. Devour.

This is why I should have used parchment paper.  My experimental loss is your gain!

One final note: if your goal is pretty-looking cookies, these should be stored between layers of wax paper.  If your typical audience tends to just cram cookies in their faces rather than take pictures like some sort of food nerd, then don't waste the wax paper.