Old School Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

Fall is finally settling over Albuquerque.  It’s still fairly hot during the day—a whopping 80 degrees—but the mornings are chilly and the sun is setting earlier and earlier, ushering in long cozy evenings making stew, taking in nourishing stories by book or TV, and enjoying a fat mug of apple spice tea.  And while it’s still not completely time to pull out those sweater and fuzzy socks, I find myself craving a batch of these hearty pumpkin cookies.  

I have fond memories of making these cookies every fall growing up.  Inevitably when the leaves started turning, we’d come home from school and eagerly pull out the older than sin Libby’s pumpkin cookies recipe.  Yeah, the 80s add it came form was kind of creepy looking, but it made heallthy-ish, delicious cookies!

I find myself going back to this recipe each season as routine—or ritual—that helps me take in the joy of the changing seasons and welcome in fall.  I got to talking to my mom about this as I began my search for that original recipe she shared so long ago. I went down a Pinterest rabbit hole to no avail, but my mom, the original witchy woman role model, found the original Libby’s recipe online.  We were back in business!  

Alas, neither of us eat that much sugar anymore and the original Libby’s recipe calls for A LOT.  So I adapted my recipe from that old school Libby’s recipe, but cut out a lot of the sugar and butter, with the help of this recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction (thanks again, mom!).   Like my She Works Hard for the Money Power Muffins or my Energizer Bunny Bars, these cookies are great snacks to hold you over when the day is fuller than usual.  They are also perfectly delicious for a perfectly un-busy day, paired with a good book and a cup of my earthy Autumn Harvest Tea.   Better still, I look forward to sharing this recipe with my little niece and passing on the tradition of making pumpkin cookies every fall.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup pumpkin puree

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cups oats

1/2 cup pepitas

1 tsp grated fresh ginger

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp powdered ginger

1/4 tsp cardamom

pinch of salt

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven 350.

2. Mix all wet ingredients until blended.

3. Add in spices and baking soda, powder, and pinch of salt.

4. Then add in sugar and, once combined, flour.

5. From there, add in oats and pepitas. The dough should be thick and a little sticky.

6. Drop a large spoonful of dough onto an unlined baking sheet and press into circular cookies.

7. Bake for 12ish minutes.

8. Enjoy! Makes roughly a dozen cookies. I like to store them in the freezer and pull one out for a quick treat.

Enchantment Learning & Living is an inspirational blog celebrating life’s simple pleasures, everyday mysticism, and delectable recipes that are guaranteed to stir the kitchen witch in you. If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that true magic is in the everyday, subscribe to my newsletter for regular doses of enchantment. Want even more inspiration? Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Here’s to a magical life!

Cultivating Routines as Rituals

I write a lot about the power of routine as ritual, or taking our day-in, day-out practices and turning them into meaningful, intentional activities that enhance the overall quality of our lives. But what does that really mean? And how to we turn these rote activities into sacred practices? First, we have to understand the difference between routine and ritual.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, routine is defined as “a sequence of actions regularly followed.”  Pretty straight forward.  It’s the stuff we do regularly without fail, whether they are good for us (waking up early to exercise before work) or bad (always hitting the vending machine at three in the afternoon).  Some are more mundane: pay the rent at the first of the month, take your six-month visit to the dentist, get an oil and lube for your car. 

We are so used to these things as basic parts of adult life that we never really think too hard about them, unless something is out of joint (not sure how you will pay your rent, a sketchy dentists, weird nosies coming from your car’s engine).  Hell, our routines are so ingrained, we often zone out while caring from them.  Have you ever driven home from work via the same rout you take every day and have no memory of the drive?  That’s you on autopilot.  Your routine is so second-nature you disconnect from the actual activity you’re doing.

The second definition  of routine is equally telling.  It defines it as “a set sequence in a performance such as a dance or comedy act.”  So routine is not just a basic repetitive schedule, but something we perform, consciously or unconsciously.  It’s all about how important we want people to see us.  Running from one thing to the next practically shouts that we are so busy, so interesting, so important!  It also broadcasts our values.  Do you value squeezing in one more thing at work over finishing a few minutes early and leisurely heading home to enjoy some self-care?  To you pack your weekends with activities and experiences, or do you create time to dally?  Each decision shapes how we see ourselves and how others see us. 

But these definitions of routine only take is so far.  Only far enough to get us thinking about how we see ourselves and how we want others to see us, in fact.  But what about what we want to feel, experience, and enjoy?

That’s where ritual comes it. 

Ritual is about consciously, mindfully tending to our daily tasks, taking comfort in the familiarity and pleasure in how they ground and nurture us.  We welcome in the healthy and the good and actively eliminate the life-diminishing and bad.  

In order to do that, however, we have to change how we look at our day-in, day-out.  It’s not a place we need to escape from (who hasn’t fantasized about running away to a distant land when life gets complicated or dreary?).  It’s not a collection of minutes that fills our head until the real fun—a weekend, celebration, or happy event—can happen.  It’s about finding joy in the life we create for ourselves one small, deliberate act at a time.  I’m reminded of the Ten of Cups in the tarot here—the homey gratitude card that asks you to step back and appreciate all the simple magic of your life that you’ve worked hard to create. 

The first step to unplugging from rote activities—aka mindless routine—is to find enjoyment in the things we often perceive as One More Thing To Do.  Celebrate chores, rather than dread them by turning them into rituals that help you unplug from your workday and reconnect with yourself.  So I have to turn my compost—good.  Dirt in my fingernails grounds me and feeding the worms connects me to nature.  So I don't know what to cook for dinner—I 'll start with sautéing an onion and let my farm fresh ingredients speak to me.  Taking the extra time to cook a healthy meal allows me to nourish my whole being and enjoy the sensuousness of sautéing vegetables.  It allows me to slow down and reconnect to the deliciousness that is life.  Throw in a jazz record and a glass of wine, and you've got the makings of a divine evening.  

Now, doesn’t that sound lovely?

Each and every task becomes a devotional act to the energy I want to welcome into my life and an expression for gratitude for the abundance I have painstakingly cultivated.  A celebration of my hard work and a deliberate conjuring of more good energy. 

What routines will you transform into sacred rituals?

Enchantment Learning & Living is an inspirational blog celebrating life’s simple pleasures, everyday mysticism, and delectable recipes that are guaranteed to stir the kitchen witch in you. If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that true magic is in the everyday, subscribe to my newsletter below for regular doses of enchantment. Want even more inspiration? Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Here’s to a magical life!