The Great Pumpkin Cookie Recipe

I made these this morning with G. She loved them. They are really good. We used Splenda instead of sugar. We also used Smart Balance 50/50. Next time we'll use whole wheat flour (we were out today). I allowed G to have the chocolate chips - we just used less of them.

2 cups flour
1 cup quick or old fashioned oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup margarine or butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup sugar (or Splenda - measures identical to sugar)
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup Libby's solid pack pumpkin
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1 cup pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In bowl combine flour, oats, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.

In another bowl cream margarine. Gradually add sugars, beating until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; mix well. Alternate adding dry ingredients and pumpkin; mix well after each addition. Stir in chocolate chips.

Drop cookies by the tablespoon onto a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake 20-25 minutes until cookies are firm and lightly brown. Remove and cool on racks.

Yields 35-40 cookies

Recipe: Holly Mongomery - First Assembly of God Favorite Recipes (Lafayette, LA) 2006

Banana Bread

Tribute to my Grandmother who makes the best banana bread!! It's so easy, but so yummy! I've made a minor change by using Splenda in place of regular sugar and wheat flour instead of regular flour.

1/2 cup shortening
1 cup Splenda
2 eggs
1 cup mashed ripe bananas
1 tsp lemon juice
2 cups wheat flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract (optional - but tastes great in there)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a loaf pan.

In bowl, cream shortening and Splenda together. In seperate bowl beat eggs until light, then add mashed bananas and lemon juice. Blend with creamed mixture. Add wheat flour, baking powder and salt. Add vanilla and almond extracts. Blend in nuts if adding them.

Bake for 1 & 1/4 hours.

This recipe can be doubled. Loaves can be wrapped really well and put in the freezer.

Make great gifts for the holidays.

(Adaptation of original recipe from Wanda Gates)

Let the recipes begin...

Ok - so I've decide to start a recipe blog. I'm inspired by my friend who has an awesome blog called Tales From the Fridge where she posts about recipes she tries, menu planning, etc. I need a place to gather all of the yummy recipes I try. Frankly, my recipe & cook book shelf in the pantry is a wreck! It is way too hard to keep all of the index cards, notebook pages, magazine clippings, etc. in order. Ever since my hubby has had to make a drastic diet change & we've decided to reduce our daughter's sugar intake, I've been hunting down new recipes. This is a great way to save the good ones. I'm looking forward to doing it & hopefully it might be helpful to someone else along the way.

Here we go...