Cooking with Kids : Pumpkin Cookies

{This post was first published in 2015. We’re reposting it again today because there’s nothing better than a pumpkin cookie on a cold November day.}
Pumpkin is our ingredient of the season. So far we’ve used it to make some pumpkin butter, pumpkin popsicles, and a quick weeknight pasta.

Welcome back to our new Cooking with Kids series, where Alex is the true star, and these pumpkin cookies are the runner up. If you haven’t seen our first Cooking with Kids post, it’s worth a glance, especially if you’re just starting out on this whole kids-in-the-kitchen adventure. Today’s post will not go into as much detail about how to make the cooking fun for your little one, instead, I’m just putting all of our past tips into practice and sharing a few ideas related specifically to this recipe and baking cookies in general. As a point of reference for any moms out there, Alex helped with these cookies when he was 29 months old (just shy of 2 1/2 years).

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This is a recipe that I first saw on Design Mom. I made a batch for a party last fall, and predicted then that they would become a fall favorite. This year’s batch turned out just as delicious and well-received by everyone in the house, that they’ve retained their position as “favorite fall cookie”. The cookies are delicious little fluffy cakes of pumpkin, and if kept in an airtight container, they will stay moist for at least two weeks (surprisingly a few cookies made it that long in our house!). The original recipe includes instructions for a glaze, I didn’t make it this year, opting for a plain cookie, but made it last year and loved it. I’ll include it below in case you’re craving the extra touch of sweetness.

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Pollinator Power Salad

We originally published this salad recipe four years ago. We’re republishing it today as this is the start of Pollinator Week 2019!

There are many ways to celebrate and show our appreciation for the hard-working pollinators that help to keep nature in balance and play a key role in providing 75% of the food we eat.

  • plant a pollinator garden
  • stop using pesticides on your lawn
  • buy organic produce (to reduce large-scale pesticide and herbicide use)
  • encourage your neighborhood to become Pollinator/Bee Safe

If you’d like to learn more fun-facts about pollinators (and see an awesome video of a nectar-drinking bee-fly!), click here.

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Today we have a recipe for a salad that is jam-packed with good ingredients, and every single one, from the mustard in the dressing to the pumpkin seeds, required pollination to help them grow and reproduce. As you’ll see, the salad looks absolutely beautiful and represents everything that is good about summer. But before you dig in, say thanks to every pollinator that played a role in bringing this food to your table.

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As we mentioned on Monday, about 75% of the food we eat required pollinators to grow and produce seeds. That seems like a lot, but when you look at this salad, it’s so easy to see how that’s possible. In making this salad, I used information from this USDA document to determine which foods required pollination. As you’ll see, I got a bit creative with this salad, but if you have a family of cautious eaters, you can look at Table 1 in that document and find ingredients that suit your household. For example, I didn’t even put tomatoes, which are such a common salad ingredient, in this dish, but they are on the list!

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Dandelion & Quinoa Salad

If you like this post, you may want to add some dandelion greens and petals to our pollinator power salad, or make your own dandelion blossom fritters!

Eat your greens. Dandelion greens!

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But don’t worry, if you’re not one for foraging or don’t have a yard, you may be able to find dandelion greens at a market near you, we did!

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Pumpkin Galette

Pumpkin is our ingredient of the season. We have all sorts of sweet and savory dishes, as well as a face mask to wear while drinking your lattes.

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Have you made a galette? I have the feeling that they’re a trendy-food-of-the-moment, as I keep seeing them pop up on blogs and places like the cooking section of the NYTimes. And you know what I think? If it’s trendy, there might be a reason why… flaky pastry crust and savory fillings. That’s why.

Very simply, a galette is a rustic pie without a pan. The pastry dough is rolled out into a rough circle, the filling is piled in the middle, and then the sides of the dough are turn up and over the filling. It gets baked on a flat pan and that’s it. Simple as pie (I had to say it)! Galettes can be sweet or savory. With a filling of pumpkin, caramelized onions, apple, and ricotta cheese, this one is a little of both. The dough’s whole wheat flour is a perfectly nutty compliment to the savory-sweet fall filling. Enjoy!

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Pumpkin Pudding!

Pumpkin is our ingredient of the season. We have all sorts of sweet and savory dishes, as well as a face mask to wear while drinking your lattes.

I don’t remember when or if I’ve ever made a homemade pudding before, but the idea of making a homemade pumpkin pudding has been on my mind for a few weeks now. Finally, with snow on the ground yesterday and plans for a cozy day at home, I made a batch and it was delicious!

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When searching for recipes, I was looking for a basic pudding with pumpkin and spice in it. What I found were many recipes for baked pumpkin custards (almost like mini pumpkin pies but without the crust). I also found many pumpkin puddings that used boxed-pudding shortcuts or had unnecessary ingredients. I wanted something with simple ingredients from scratch. Finally, I happened upon a few that looked like tried-and-true pudding recipes, and I ended up taking some ideas from one and some from another to develop the final recipe written below.  
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Using a few staple ingredients, it’s relatively easy to whip up a homemade pudding. The key to success is to never. stop. whisking. Whisking the pudding as it cooks will eliminate clumps and stop the pudding from burning on the bottom of the pan. The other step you’ll want to be careful with is tempering the yolks.  Tempering eggs is done whenever you want to add eggs to a hot liquid, but you don’t want to scramble the eggs. To temper the yolks, you’ll slowly pour some of the hot milk mixture into the yolks while constantly whisking them (there’s the whisking again!). You add enough of the hot milk mixture until the temperature of the yolks is fairly warm, and at that point you can then pour the yolk mixture into the pot with the rest of the milk without fear of scrambling.

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Calder and I ate this pudding as an afternoon treat while the boys napped (parents have all the fun!). I served it in these little Duralex Gigogne tumblers that I had picked up on sale with this pudding in mind… I’ve really put too much thought into this one dessert. BUT if you do make this pudding, serving it in these glasses will make your childish treat more refined. And now that I have the tumblers, I see many more pudding afternoons in my future (I’m really overindulging in this parenting gig now).

Pumpkin Pudding!

Pumpkin Pudding!

Ingredients

  • 2 cups whole milk
  • 1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp brown sugar
  • 3 Tbsp corn starch
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 1 cup pumpkin puree
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/16 tsp ground cloves (or a pinch!)
  • 1/16 tsp ground ginger (or a pinch!)

Instructions

  1. While whisking, bring the milk, sugar, and cornstarch to a boil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.
  2. Boil for approximately 2-3 minutes, whisking constantly. If the mixture is bubbling wildly, you can turn it down slightly. I also use the method of picking up the pot or sliding it off the burner for a few seconds if it's getting too hot.
  3. Gradually pour about a cup of the milk mixture into the egg yolks, constantly whisking the yolks as you do this.
  4. Pour the egg mixture into the pot with the rest of the milk. Return the pudding to the stove and cook over medium heat for 3 minutes while whisking constantly.
  5. Remove the pudding from the heat, whisk in the pumpkin, salt, and spices.
  6. All the pudding to cool and set before serving. We ate it while it was still a touch warm, and it was delicious.
https://liveseasoned.com/pumpkin-pudding/

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It was absolutely delicious served plain, but I also added a bit of whipped cream and sprinkle of cinnamon. Best November snow day treat ever.

Cooking with Kids : Pumpkin Muffins

Pumpkin is our ingredient of the season. We have all sorts of sweet and savory dishes, as well as a face mask to wear while drinking your lattes. Cooking with Kids is an ongoing series where we share recipes that are easy enough to make with a two-year-old. If you’re new to the series, read our first post that provides our detailed tips for cooking with little ones; subsequent posts are less detailed.

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You may have seen these pumpkin muffins on Instagram, they spent Halloween week masquerading around the house as spiders. After browsing the Halloween baking supplies on sale, Alex picked out the spider holders, and they dictated our afternoon baking activity.

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It had been a couple of weeks since Alex helped Calder and I in the kitchen (somehow we had even skipped our usual weekend pancake session), and I didn’t realize how much he was yearning for some kitchen time until we started these muffins. The kiddo went ballistic when I put “his” measuring cup and spoon in front of him. I wish I had a recording of his excited giggles/yelps.

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In the first Cooking with Kids post, I mentioned using my phone to look up recipes while in the kitchen. While I do get recipes online, I’m proud to say that just as often I’m using cookbooks as my source. For this particular recipe (and much of my basic baking), I used the King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion. I recently read an article about how kids today aren’t getting the experience of using phone books, dictionaries, and other physical resources because so often we just search for information online. While I could wax poetic about how much I love cookbooks for their recipe ideas, inspirational photos, and stories, I think Alex will pick up on all of those details himself if I just keep the books around and continue using them during our kitchen adventures.

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King Arthur doesn’t have a recipe for pumpkin muffins, but it does have reliable recipe for banana chocolate chip muffins with whole wheat flour. I just subbed pumpkin puree for the banana and white chocolate chips for the semi-sweet. I might have stuck with chocolate chips if we had any, but the white ended up being a delicious alternative, adding an an indulgent candy sweetness to these hearty muffins.

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On this particular day, I decided to let Alex try using the can opener. I knew (and I’m sure you do too), that there’s no way he would be strong enough to operate our basic opener, but sometimes I think it’s nice for him to figure out what we can’t do on his own rather than having me always telling him. With a two-year-old, letting them try can actually make your days a lot more peaceful because you won’t have the whole “you can’t do it/you’re too little”, “but i want to/whining” back and forth. Instead, they try, fail, and then we use “teamwork!” to open the can together.

After opening the can (and reminding Alex that the edges were sharp), I gave him a spoon and let him measure out the pumpkin. He started scooping the pumpkin into the measuring cup, but after a few minutes, the temptation was too much, and he ended up tasting the puree. One taste led to two and three, and he completely lost interest in measuring out the puree, so I finished the task. That was no big deal at all. I could have tried to keep him on task, but why cause a fuss that would stop him from eating the healthy pumpkin?

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Other than the pumpkin, the rest of our baking proceeded as normal. Alex measured and sampled. He smelled the cinnamon. He sampled, and spit out, the salt. He ate a few walnuts and a few white chocolate chips.

Pumpkin Muffins

Pumpkin Muffins

Ingredients

  • 8 Tbsp butter
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 cup white flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3/4 cup white chocolate chips
  • 1 cup walnuts, chopped

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
  2. Cream together the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Scrape down the bowl and then beat in the egg, cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin, and milk.
  3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients, and then gentle mix them into the pumpkin mixture.
  4. Spoon the batter into 12 muffin cups (grease the muffin cups if not using papers). Bake the muffins for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove the muffins from the oven and cool for 10 minutes before removing them from the pan.
https://liveseasoned.com/cooking-kids-pumpkin-muffins/

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Bake these muffins, I promise they are anything but scary! Of course, if you’re looking to add a bit of spook to your table, we found the spider holders at Michael’s.

Pumpkin Chili

Pumpkin is our ingredient of the season. If you like this pumpkin chili, you might want to check out our stew and curry too!

Pumpkin Chili! In our house, chili was one of the first dinners that we learned to make. Our mom had a really simple, kid-friendly recipe (ground beef, canned beans and tomatoes, chili spice packet). Side note : can’t wait to teach Alex to make that one; look for that as a Cooking with Kids post in a couple of years. I was always really psyched to for chili night, but as I’ve grown, so have my tastes. Now I love a chili packed with fresh veggies, and fortunately for me, this chili has not one, but two types of pumpkin. Victory!

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I used two types of pumpkin because they each do something different for the dish. The fresh pumpkin holds its texture well when cooked, making it another vegetable that easy to identify in this chunky chili, while the pureed pumpkin adds a creamy texture to the chili liquid.

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Homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte

Pumpkin is our ingredient of the season. Today’s recipe is great for using up those last bits of pumpkin (just like this face mask potion!) when other recipes call for less than a full can.

We’re officially halfway through the fall season here on the blog, so it’s about time that we started crafting our own pumpkin spice lattes! Of course, in order to write this post, I had to do a little bit of research last week, stopping at Starbucks to taste the original before experimenting at home. Such. hard. work.

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The PSL syrup recipe I used is directly from A Beautiful Mess (hi there, we <3 you!). I just modified it slightly by halving all ingredients and upping the ratio of brown to granulated sugar. I made half a batch because I was worried about having more than I could finish, but fortunately, these are so good that I’ll have no trouble finishing the jar.

**Our dear friend Nicole provides a low-sugar version in the comments. Check it out!

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Pumpkin Curry

Pumpkin is our ingredient of the season. We’re a big fan of pumpkin desserts (cookies, and popsicles, anyone?), but we’re not opposed to drinking our pumpkin or putting it on our face! Oh, and if you like the idea of a pumpkin soup, but don’t want the spice of a curry, check out this stew!

I’m trying to figure out how to introduce this pumpkin curry. Here are my options : 1. it’s so easy to make! 2. it’s delicious; everyone, including little Luc and Alex, loved it! 3. on a personal note, cooking curry brings back so many awesome memories from my time visiting Sarah in Thailand. All three introductions are true, and together, they have me wanting to make a pot of this curry every night. You should probably make it too.

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In Sarah’s post about Bangkok, she briefly mentioned the cooking class that we took together at Silom Thai Cooking School. It was such a great traveling experience. I love eating Thai food, and I’m happy to experiment with recipes I find online and in cookbooks, but it was reassuring to have experienced teachers show us how to make a handful of dishes and confirm that, as I’ll show you today, making a delicious curry is really that simple.

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Pumpkin Links

Pumpkin is our ingredient of the season. We’re a big fan of pumpkin desserts (cookies, and popsicles, anyone?), but we also like our pumpkin in the form of brews and stew too!

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I’ve been stumbling across a lot of great pumpkin links and wanted to share my favorites.

I can’t wait for some cooler weather to make some pumpkin chili… and then we’ll counteract the hot with some pumpkin butterscotch sundaes!

I love (love, love!) this cast iron pumpkin pot, but think I have to host at least a few more Thanksgivings before I’ve earned it.

And this pumpkin loaf pan is pretty cute too. I think cooking with Alex is encouraging my lust after all sorts of cute bakeware.

And since we’re blaming things on kids, I love browsing the Oriental Trading catalogs. Seeing things like these pumpkin erasers bring back all of the best memories of being a kid!

Why was the jack-o-lantern afraid to cross the road? It had no guts! More pumpkin jokes here. We were trying to teach Alex a few jokes last night, but I think he’s still a little young (meanwhile Calder and I were cracking up!).

What about you? Have any pumpkins caught your eye lately?

 Image from the Library of Congress archives.