Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Sugar Icing

    Our   favorite   fall cookie was   clipped from a  small  Reader's Digest-sized newsprint  magazine that published only  readers recipes -- a pretty radical idea then, long before  Taste Of Home began publishing home  recipes.    Thank you Mrs. Eleanor Harmon of Tulsa, Oklahoma, wherever you may be now,  for  submitting your  recipe to Home Cooking in 1973.  I've never found a  soft  pumpkin cookie I like  more.   

Cream 1 c. solid Crisco with 1c. sugar and 1 egg.  Add 1 c. canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling,  but you already know that).   Sift all the dry ingredients together :  1 tsp each baking soda, cinnamon, and baking  powder  and   2 c. flour,  1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 c. chopped  pecans or walnuts, 1/2 c. raisins.  Add it all to the wet ingredients and add 1 tsp vanilla.   Drop by  generous tablespoons onto  greased cookie pans. 

Bake in a preheated 350 oven for about 10-12 minutes. They should just be just barely firm on top, don't let them brown.  Cool before frosting.

To make the icing,  cook 3 TB butter with 1/2 c brown sugar and 3-4 tsp  milk  just to the boiling point, then cool and add 3/4 tsp vanilla and 1 c. powdered sugar.    This frosts about 2 1/2  to 3 dozen smallish cookies, but  we  like them bigger, so I always increase the baking time by a couple of minutes.  If you make the icing before the cookies are ready, you may need to  thin it out by warming a bit and/or stirring in a couple more tablespoons of milk.

Brownie Pie

I always have called this slightly chewy, slightly gooey chocolate delight   Brownie  Pie, but if you live in the south you may call it Tar Heel Pie.  North Carolina's  pine forests  produce a lot of tar, earning it the nickname "Tar Heel State". There's your trivia for today.

 I should probably rename it  "Bake Sale Miracle Pie" in  recognition of the frequency  of times I sent  these pies  to my kids  school bake sales.   It takes no more than 5 minutes to toss  in one bowl and the ingredients are always on hand,  so  midnight  baking wasn't unusual.     The bake sale days are long over   and now  we are watching sodium.  I realized that it just happens to be   naturally low in sodium at 45mg per each of 6 slices if you leave out the salt, or 145mg  if you include it.   I always do, because salt does something wonderful to chocolate. Coffee makes chocolate 'pop' too, so this rich pie is doubly delicious.

 
Here goes:   Melt 1 stick unsalted butter and pour the hot butter over 1 c. semisweet chocolate chips and stir til melted and well mixed. Then add 2 beaten eggs, 1/3 c flour, 1/2 c. brown sugar, 1/2c white sugar, 1 tsp dry instant coffee granules, 1 tsp vanilla, 1/4 tsp kosher salt ( optional), and 1 c chopped walnuts or pecans. Pour into an unbaked  pie crust and bake in a preheated 350 oven for about 30- 35 minutes. The top will be shiny and set. Cool for at least an hour before cutting &  serving.  If you'd like to serve it warm, let it cool completely first   and later nuke individual slices  for 15 seconds before serving. Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream are   traditional, but I will understand  completely if   Graeter's strawberry chocolate chip ice cream shows up instead.