The recipe below is a little, um, trashier than what I generally like to post here (beware, Marshmallow Fluff below!) but I’ve been thinking about this recipe since last year when the L’il Sis made a huge batch of soft pumpkin cookies. I knew these soft cakey gems would be even better as a wee cookie sandwich and curdle your Thanksgiving gravy if I’m not right.

One interesting fact I’ve learned about holiday cooking from my fellow foodbloggers is that the best pumpkin pie is not made with canned L*bby’s pumpkin puree but with homebaked butternut squash. The redeeming quality in these cookies, should their soft cake-like texture and binge-worthy filling not be enough for you, is that you can use an honest-to-goodness strain-your-arm-when-trying-to-slice-it squash. You know, those crazy shaped things next to the leftover flavorless Halloween pumpkins.

I have a pal (who shall remain nameless here but you know who you are) that last year cooked her own “from scratch” Green Bean Casserole using fresh haricots vert, creamed wild mushrooms, and even breaded and fried her own onion rings for the topping. And! Not one person at the table remarked on the effort. Sigh.

In any case, at least you can feel good about throwing one fresh from the farmer’s market ingredient into this tasty holiday-time treat.

makes: 8-9 dozen single cookies, about 50 sandwiches
time: 1 hour to bake squash, 30 minutes to mix batter, 11 minutes to bake

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

4 cups flour
3 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 3/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups butternut squash or pumpkin puree*
1 1/2 tbsp milk
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract

*see introduction for words of warning about using canned pumpkin

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda and salt together in a large bowl. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar together in a second mixing bowl. Add oil, squash/pumpkin puree, milk, eggs and vanilla.

Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet while beating on medium speed. Continue beating until well mixed.

Drop in 1/2 teaspoons onto a greased baking sheet 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes, until bottoms are golden.
For Filling (adapted from Allrecipes.com )

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
4 cups marshmallow fluff
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp of lemon zest, optional
1/4 tsp salt

Cream together the butter and the sugar.

Add the remaining ingredients and beat together until well combined.

Put the filling into a large ziplock or other clean bag. Snip a small piece off the corner and use as a pastry bag to pipe the filling onto the bottom side of one cookie.

Press the bottom side of another cookie into the filling and Whoopie! you’re all set.

I’m not sure if frugality and penny-pinching is genetic but for better or worse I’ve inherited my family’s Midwestern “waste not, want not” mantra. I get phone calls like “Hey Vanessa, I’m about to throw away some bubble wrap, a yard of astroturf, and a silver ice bucket with my initials on it… I just thought you might, you know, want to do something with it before it goes into trash.” You see, I hate wasting anything.

I buy a bunch of bananas, for instance, and if the sisters and I can’t eat them all before they start to go spotty I throw the brown ones in the freezer, skins and all, to be later incarnated as banana bread or my favorite smoothie: banana-peanutbutter-cocoa.

So when challenged by a recipe development class at the Institute of Culinary Education to create a variation on the classic chocolate-chip cookie, I thought it would be fine time to clear the freezer of bananas and put them to use in a cookie version of my favorite smoothie. Effervescent instructor Sarah Copeland, recipe tester for the Food Network, used her encyclopedic baking knowledge to help turn my smoothie concept into real (and vegan!) cookies. My classmates shared inspired ideas and comments, including Myra Kornfield’s vegan baking tip to use coconut oil in the cookies for richness. The weekend class somehow flew by even though my stomach was quite heavily bogged down with test cookies.

So here they are, the results of my smoothie-to-cookie experiment - Vegan Banana Peanut Butter Cocoa Cookies, or Vanana Cookies for short. The bananas, peanut butter, and cocoa combine to create a rich brownie-like cookie with bursts of creamy banana and chunky peanut. Truly scrumptious, vegan, and a great way to reclaim a few overly ripe bananas.

Preparation = 20 minutes
Cooking = 10 minutes
Yield = 16 large cookies

Vegan Banana Peanut Butter Cocoa Cookies

2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder, preferably organic
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 very ripe bananas*
1 1/4 cup natural chunky peanut butter, at room temperature
1⁄4 cup coconut oil (not virgin), at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 firm-ripe bananas, cut into large dice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl.

In another bowl, cream together the ripe bananas, peanut butter, coconut oil, light brown sugar and vanilla extract until all ingredients are completely incorporated, about 3 minutes.

Slowly add the chocolate mixture to the ripe banana mixture, stirring to combine. Mixture should be very thick. Fold in diced banana with a rubber spatula.

Drop on an ungreased cookie sheet in large, 3 tablespoon-sized scoops, spaced one inch apart.

Bake until the outside of the cookie lightens, starts to develop deep cracks, and the banana bits start to brown, about 8 - 11 minutes.

Cool for 2 minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring to a wire rack.

*Can be frozen and rethawed

My sister/roommate, known here as the Sistaster, has a deadly snack-weapon she likes to use to lure me into ruining my dinner. It goes by the delightful-in-a-kindergarden-way name of Puppy Chow… because it looks a little like puppy food, I guess. It’s also known as “Muddy Buddies” (the chocolate looks like mud?) or “White Trash” (because it’s inexpensive? because you can use a trash bag to mix it? because of the white powder?)

Basically, it’s Chex Cereal coated with melted peanut butter and chocolate and covered, to prevent stickiness, with powdered sugar. Like I said, deadly.

Inspired by a post from fellow NYC blogger Lisa of Homesick Texan, I thought I could class-up the classic Puppy Chow with ancho chili, almond butter, and the piece de resistance - Fritos (!) As Lisa eyeopeningly pointed out: “when you eat Fritos, you can pretend they’re good for you, as the ingredients are just corn, oil and salt—nothing artificial about these babies, they’re practically a whole food.” I love this train of thought, but once you’ve got them coated in chocolate and spicy powdered sugar you won’t be able to fool yourself any more.

This sweet, salty and spicy combination is addicting for some (myself included) but others think it’s downright weird. If you like a snack with a little bit of an edge, please try it out and let me know what you think.

Time: 15 minutes
Serves: 1 - 20

Spicy Choco-Frito Chow

(2) 10oz bags of original Fritos
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup almond butter
1.5 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
4 tsp ancho chili powder

Melt the chocolate chips and almond butter together in a small saucepan over low heat. In a large bowl or 2 gallon ziplock bag pour the melted chocolate over the Fritos and toss to coat evenly.

Mix the confectioners’ sugar, cinnamon, and ancho chili together in a separate bowl. Coat the chocolately Fritos in the sugar mix. Let dry, and serve in a really big bowl.