One of my recipes was a repeat from last week; I made another batch of pumpkin oatmeal cookies. They are just so good - and definitely even better with my own homemade pumpkin puree :) It makes a ton of cookies, which was perfect to bring to a big party. And Amanda had requested them. Perfect. To make it even better, my dream came true at the party: people asked for my recipe! Laugh all you want, but I've been hoping for this to happen for years. Usually Kenzie makes people ask me, which is really not the same thing, but this time the people who asked swear they really did want to make these cookies for Thanksgiving :)
The other thing I made was sort of a spur of the moment thing. I had seen a recipe on my favorite blog for popcorn blogs. They seemed so easy - make popcorn, make the same "sauce" that you do for rice krispie treats, and then pout it on the popcorn and make balls out of it. And they were that easy! The only problem was that I popped my own popcorn using bags of buttered popcorn, so I ended up with some unpopped kernels that I desperately tried to pick out once I poured the sticky marshmallow-butter mixture on top. It was way too late by then, and some of the kernels stayed in there. Be careful of that! Mark did a great job forming the popcorn balls, and Mom was our sprinkler; we used pink and blue sprinkles, since Amanda is having a boy and a girl. Then we put lollipop sticks that Mom had bought through them. If I do say so myself, they looked pretty cute. The recipe says it makes 8-10, but I wanted slightly smaller balls, so we got around 25 perfectly-sized popcorn balls. Less than half of them went at the party (probably because my sister very loudly announced that she nearly broke a tooth on a kernel!) but I was happy this morning to see people walking down the hall holding them! I left the extras in the office last night after the shower, and they all went today. One woman even said, "I don't know who made these, but they were delicious! This is my third one!" So I was happy about that :) I would recommend these for any holiday party; like the blog says, it would be really easy to decorate these for any occasion - just change up the colored sprinkles! They are easy, cute, and pretty good too - salty, buttery, sugary and sweet all at once!
Recipes:
marshmallow popcorn balls
pumpkin oatmeal cookies
from Annie's Eats
Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
¾ tsp. ground ginger
¼ tsp. ground cloves
¼ tsp. grated nutmeg
Dash of allspice
½ tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup pumpkin puree
1½ cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup dried cranberries
Directions:
1) Preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.
2) In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, spices and salt. Whisk to blend.
3) In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the butter and sugars on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Blend in the egg and vanilla. Beat in the pumpkin puree until well incorporated.
4) With the mixer on low speed, mix in the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Beat in the oats until combined.
5) With a rubber spatula, fold in the white chocolate chips and dried cranberries until evenly mixed.
6) Drop in small scoops (about 1½-2 tablespoons) onto prepared baking sheets, spaced 2-3 inches apart. Bake 12-14 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly browned, rotating the sheets halfway through baking. Allow to cool on the sheets about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.
