Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

According to a Yahoo! News article I read the other day, 40% of food in the U.S. is wasted. This equated to $43 billion of wasted food in 2011. That’s a whole lot of grub getting thrown out!

I have to admit, sometimes food goes bad in my kitchen. I think it has to do with a few things:

A.) The majority of the eats I buy are perishable (yeah, I’m produce obsessed) and only stay good for a short period of time.

B.) When you cook a lot as I do, you tend to use a little bit of this and a slice of that, leaving you with open jars and half-eaten foods to remember to eat later.

C.) I’m mostly living by myself right now. This makes it harder to buy the right proportions of food, especially because I measure out a lot of what I eat and don’t consume all that much (despite the fact that I’m constantly talking about food on here!). This is a big adjustment from when I have my hubby home, who eats probably 3-4x the amount that I do.

Though I don’t think it’s realistic to say that another piece of food will never going bad in my kitchen again (it’s bound to happen once in awhile..), I think that wasting food is a bummer and I’m trying to be more conscious of what’s in my kitchen lately.

That being said, I had an open can of pumpkin in my fridge after making pumpkin oatmeal muffins last week. When I looked at it and saw that the pumpkin wasn’t bad yet but probably would be soon, I decided to whip something up with it. Thus, a new cookie recipe was born!

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

Makes 6 cookies

• 1/2 c pure pumpkin
• 2 TBSP light butter
• 2 TBSP chocolate chips
• 1/2 TSP vanilla extract
• 2 TBSP brown sugar
• 1/4 c whole wheat flour
• 1/4 TSP baking powder
• 1/2 TSP cinnamon
• 1/2 TSP pumpkin pie spice
• Pinch of salt

In a small bowl, beat pumpkin, vanilla extract, butter, and sugar until mixed well.

In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and salt.

Pour the pumpkin mixture into the dry mixture, then stir chocolate chips in.

Spoon 6 balls of dough onto a baking pan, then bake at 350 degrees until lightly browned. Mine were in the oven for about 15 minutes.

Per cookie: 80 calories, 4 g fat, 1 g protein, 13 g carbs

I had the brilliant idea of making a pumpkin cookie sandwich, putting two together and spreading cool whip and Trader Joe’s pumpkin butter in the middle:

YUM! I’m happy I only made half a dozen (for the sake of my waistline, as I doubt I would allow these to go bad!).

Now, what to do with that open can of black beans I’ve had sitting in the fridge…