Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

I thought last night's post would be my last before the trip, but I was wrong about that.  Also, this is New Recipe Night's 500th post!!  Woot!  That is crazy.  Anyway today I made these cookies.  I have a friend at work who has been craving them (yep, baby on board), and I knew I was working with her tonight.  I had to look up a recipe for them on allrecipes.com, because I didn't have one.  My family does not like pumpkin.  They are crazy like that.  So also I knew this would be an easy one to get out of the house tonight when I go in.  Sometimes when I make things to bring to work, they are mad at me.  But they won't be tonight.  I tried to entice them to eat one for their after-lunch dessert but they were not interested.  Even with the chocolate chips.  I looked at a bunch of different recipes for these cookies.  Some of them had oatmeal, which I don't remember ever eating when I've eaten these.  Some of them only used 1 cup of pumpkin, but I didn't want to waste the other half of the can.  Also I didn't want to double the recipe, because there will be, at most, 8-10 of us eating these at work tonight.  So I found this one that uses the whole can of pumpkin, and pumpkin pie spice.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 1/4 cups flour (I used 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour and 1 1/4 cup white)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 15 oz can pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped walnuts (omitted by me...I've never eaten them with nuts before either, plus I didn't have any)
1 12 oz bag chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375.  Grease 2 cookie sheets (I used stoneware so I didn't grease mine).  Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and pumpkin pie spice together in a mixing bowl.  In a second mixing bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until smooth and well blended.  Mix in the pumpkin and vanilla until smooth.  Gradually add the flour mixture, stirring to make a smooth batter.  Stir in nuts (if using) and chocolate chips.  Drop by tablespoonfuls onto prepared baking sheets.  Bake until edges are golden, about 18-20 minutes.  Cool briefly on cookie sheets before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

That seems like a long time to bake cookies, but it really took that long.  I've noticed on stoneware it tends to take longer, so if you use metal baking sheets it might not take quite as long.  Also the recipe says it will yield 24 cookies, but I got like 5 1/2 dozen out of them using my medium-sized Pampered Chef scoop.  I ate one after lunch to see what it tasted like.  Pretty good, if I say so myself.  I will update tomorrow with what my coworkers thought.