Sweet Tooth Tuesdays: Pumpkin Cookies

Just last week, my friends and I decided we'd have a cookie night every Tuesday night.  Which sounds awesome, right?  Except Friday, my husband and I went paleo.  No more chocolate.  No more caramel.  No more brownies.  And no. more. chocolate.  How do you make cookies without chocolate?  I think I've only made two kinds in my whole life without chocolate: snickerdoodles (not paleo) and Christmas sugar cookies (also not paleo).  So, scrambling to find a recipe that is a cookie, but also paleo, I found this by way of Pinterest: Paleo Pumpkin Cookies and created Sweet Tooth Tuesdays!  So now every Tuesday, you can check back and find another paleo dessert recipe I tried that week.

You all are about to become tasty goodness...

The ingredient list for the Paleo Pumpkin Cookies says you can use either pumpkin, butternut squash, or sweet potatoes.  Since I still have cans upon cans of pumpkin that I never used during autumn, I decided to use those.

We mixed the dry and wet ingredients separately, as instructed.

Let's be honest, one person did more mixing than the other...

After baking them for an eternity of 20 minutes, they came out looking like this:

Just a darker, tastier version of the batter.

And boom!  Cookie Night was served.  They tasted really good, especially to someone who hadn't had a lot of sugar over the last few days.  (These cookies take 2-4 tablespoons of maple syrup, and I, of course, opted for the 4 tablespoons.)  Even our dear, skeptical friend Max enjoyed them!

Proof that Max is enjoying them, even if a bag is in his face!

This recipe was certainly encouraging, and I can't wait to try what else I've picked out for my other Sweet Tooth Tuesdays!

Thin Mints

Yesterday began my venture into the three months of eating only Paleo.  And my dear, sweet husband has agreed to play along at least for a month.  (He claims he only agreed to two weeks, but I heard him say a month, so a month it is!)  I've seen a lot of discrepancies between different Paleo diets, so here are the guidelines we are following:

• No grains of any kind (that includes corn [a cereal grain] and rice)
• No beans or legumes (including peanuts and soy)
• No dairy (waaaaaaaaah!!!)
• No processed sugar
• No chemicals added to "food"

So I can eat:

• Meat
• Fruit
• Vegetables
• Seeds and Nuts (which includes Quinoa)
• Maple Syrup and Honey

And my husband and I have agreed on a compromising:

• Wine
• Tea

We've got a meal plan for the first week (which I'll post later in case you're interested.  But as a farewell to our favorite foods, here's a picture of our Thin Mint milkshakes:

So minty and so chocolatey...

Goodbye, my minty, chocolatey loves!