Pumpkin Cookies

Don't let the simple title of this post fool you. These are no ordinary cookies. I truly believe they are in part responsible for keeping Keizo and me together while we lived a vast ocean apart. I first made them at home in October 2009, as a special Halloween treat to send to Japan. Since then, they have become frequently requested and somewhat well known; Keizo, the generous guy that he is has shared them with his teammates, friends and family. Even people who have never met me have eaten my pumpkin cookies.

The basic recipe is from allrecipes.com and starts with a cup of shortening, followed by two cups of sugar. How bad can they be?

Then you add a can of pumpkin puree (not so easy to find in Japan, but given the importance of these cookies, we made it a top priority) flour, baking soda and other cookie ingredients. You could throw in the chocolate chips and call it a day, but I prefer to add a whole bunch of yummy things. This particular batch included coconut, raisins (dried cranberries are better, but I didn't feel like searching for them,) chopped almonds and milk chocolate chunks.

Mix together and drop by teaspoonful onto a cookie sheet. I had some left over pumpkin seeds from the Sweet Pumpkin cookie mix so I decorated a few of them before baking.

The full recipe makes around 6 dozen cookies, but not wanting to stay up all night transferring batches into the oven, I cut it in half. I wrapped some up to give to Keizo's sister to show my appreciation for showing me around Tokushima before and after his game there last weekend. She was pretty excited when she saw them; Keizo and I are excited that there are still some left for us.