Pumpkin Spice Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting

Pumpkin Spice Cookie with Cream Cheese Frosting

 Hi everyone! I am blogging and look it didn't take me a whole month to do so! Wow, something weird is going on right, I guess it makes sense since it almost HALLOWEEN! So since it's pumpkin season and who doesn't love pumpkins, I thought I would blog about this AMAZING cookie that I made tonight adapted from mybakingaddition.com! It's beyond delicious and sooooo easy to make! Now you can totally leave out the frosting, it still tastes awesome without it, but I prefer my cookies with a tad bit of frosting! And you can also decorate it however you want! I didn't have any sprinkles on hand, so opted with just making my frosting orange! 

Anyways, try this out and see what you think.  I am definitely taking the extra into work tomorrow.  Don't want to keep these cookies around the house or I might end up eating them all! Oh and incase I don't get to blog again before Halloween (let's hope that isn't the case) HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Ingredients for Cookie

Ingredients (15 BIG cookies): 

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

6 tbsp unsalted butter

1 cup white sugar

1 cup canned pumpking

1 egg

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/4 cup flour

----------Cream Cheese Frosting----------

4 oz light cream cheese

1/2 tbsp butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp milk

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cream together shortening, butter, sugar, and canned pumpkin.

3. Add in the egg and mix.

4. Sift together the baking soda, cinnamon powder, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg, salt, and flour.

5. Add in the dry ingredients (step 4) to the wet ingredients (step 3). 

6. Take 1/4 cup of mixture and place on cookie sheet.

7. Bake for about 15 minutes.

8. While cookies are baking, mix the cream cheese, butter, vanilla extract, and milk together until they are well combined.

9. Place frosting in the refrigerator for about 10-15 minutes so frosting hardens (if it's already hard and easy to place on top of cookies, then you can skip this step).

10. Let the cookies cool for about 5-10 minutes before putting the frosting or any other decorations on.  

11. ENJOY!

Pesto Eggplant Panini with Avocados and Tomatoes

Pesto Eggplant Panini with Avocados and Tomatoes

First post of October! I know, I know, pretty terrible.  This is becoming a monthly update and not a weekly update which is what I intended this to be.  Anyway, with work, working out, and hanging with friends/family, there just isnt many hours in the evening to myself! I have also been pretty obsessed with watching Once Upon a Time (if you don't watch it, you NEED to).  All my shows started back up, so my evenings are back to watching all my favorite shows! Yay! Oh back to some cooking!

I made this a while back, but it was delicious.  I got a Panini Maker as a birthday present this year and every now and then I use it to make some pretty delicious paninis! This one is definitely one of them that I got from SkinnyTaste.com with of course my own twist! It's full of veggies, but believe me you do not miss the absence of meat at all! Give it a shot if you have a panini maker, and if you don't, I suggest going out there and getting one! You can probably also use a stove grill and a pan to press the panini.  Trust me, give this a try, you won't be disappointed!

Ingredients for Panini

Ingredients (4 large paninis):

1 large eggplant

1/4 cup onion

1 roma tomato

1 hass avocado

1 french bread

cooking spray

2 tbsp pesto sauce

1/2 cup mozzarella cheese

salt, pepper, and chili to taste

Instructions:
1. Slice the eggplant into 1/4 inch thick pieces.  Lay pieces on a paper towel and season them with the salt, pepper and chili on both sides of eggplant. Set this aside for about 30-40 minutes so that all the moisture is drawn out.

2. Slice the onion, tomatoes into 1/4 inch circle pieces. Slice the avocados into long pieces.
3. Preheat your panini maker.
4. Lightly spray the eggplant pieces.
5. When the panini maker is hot, place the eggplant pieces and onions on the panini maker.  Close the top and grill for about 8-10 minutes or until the eggplant pieces and onions are nice and golden brown.

6. Slice the bread into 4 pieces and open each piece to get ready to put the ingredients in (a little trick I learned from SkinnyTaste's Gina to save some calories is to pick out some of the breading).  Spread about 1/2 tbsp of pesto sauce on each side of the bread.

7. Inside each piece of bread, place 3 eggplant pieces, a few slices of onions, 2 pieces of tomatoes, and 2 pieces of avocado.  Top with about 2-3 tbsp of mozzarella cheese.

8. Close the piece of bread, spray the top, and put in the panini maker. Grill for about 4-5 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the french bread is toasted.
9. Cut diagonally and ENJOY!