One more pound...

to go that is.  Until I'm to my pre-pregnancy weight.  But I'm never going to get there if I keep baking and eating like this.

I've been baking a lot recently.  It's to fill that need of a little morsel of chocolate at night.  If you know me well, you know that I really love cookie dough.  The actual cookies, I'll eat one or two usually and I've had my fill.  So we go through a batch of cookies every week or so.  Then a few weeks ago Rob handed me the 48 oz bag of chocolate chips we keep on hand.  Because if there are no cookies to be had, a few chips make a lovely late night snack.  But as he was handing me the store brand bag of chips, he saw the recipe on the back of the bag.  PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES.  For whatever reason, we often have a can or two of pumpkin pie filling on hand - probably because pumpkin pancakes on a winter weekend are awesome - so we had all of the key ingredients.  Because the recipe calls for a whole can of filling it ends up being a double recipe, making 5 - 6 dozen cookies depending on the size.

I made these on Friday night.  Sunday afternoon they were gone.  I could. not. stop. eating them.  For snacks. For meals. For desert.  They have the texture of muffins and the taste of pumpkin, a breakfast food right?  I didn't post about them before, because there was no picture taken.  But last night I made them again. And they are just as good this time around.  So thank you store brand chocolate chips for giving me my new favorite cookie recipe.  I'm adding the word pie because I imagine that if you wanted a really decadent desert adding some whipped cream or ice cream would make them kind of like pie.  And really you should plan on gifting some of them.  Otherwise you too could eat 5 dozen cookies in two days.

Pumpkin Pie Chocolate Chip Cookies

4.5 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3.5 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (or 2 tsp allspice, 1 tsp nutmeg, 0.5 tsp cloves)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Mix all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Then mix in:
1 16 oz can of pumpkin pie filling (I use Libby's)
1 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Once that's all mixed up stir in 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips.  Or don't, because they are still pretty darn good without. (I had a couple with no chips from scraping the bowl.)

Bake at 375 for 15 minutes.

The finished product will be a little spongy and soft, like a muffin.

Yum!