Great Pumpkins

It is a tradition in our house that when the Charlie Brown Halloween and Christmas specials are on tv, we make cookies and stay up REALLY late (9:00) to watch. Tonight was one of those nights.

Now, I'm not a fan of sugar cookies. They're usually flat, crispy, half-burnt things that, it seems to me, have the sole purpose of giving small children something to decorate with all those fancy colored sugars. So for our first few Christmases with kids, I avoided them. But after hearing "Mommy, why can't we use the cookie cutters?" too many times, I decided to find a good recipe. And here it is.

May I present (insert fanfare here):

The Very Bestest Sugar Cookie Recipe In The Whole Wide World!

These are thick, cake-like, chewy and delicious. Oh, how I wish I was the one who came up with this recipe.

Now, I had to leave my comfort zone to let the kids help. I'm way too much of a control freak in the kitchen to really let them help much. But help, they did.

We don't have enough counter space, so we just have a big sticky mess right on the table

All nice and pretty on the cookie sheet

And, you know what? It was fun. (Mostly).

Ahh... those colored sugars! 

The finished product

These cookies are sooo good!  I'm talking  Tracy Morgan middle school good. Full disclosure: I ate three (and a half). I know that sounds bad, but hear me out. They're 109 calories each. And I had a really light, healthy breakfast & lunch, so by the time I factored in my evening run, I still came out under 1100 calories for the day. I know they weren't the healthiest calories, but I'm still pretty impressed with myself.

My children were especially impressed with this cookie:

A Great Pumpkin

As my four-year-old said, "It looks like something you'd see in a cookbook."

And, speaking of "Great Pumpkins," here is a bird eating out of one at the zoo

Mmmm... pumpkin brains!

My daughter trying to lift one

"I'm sure I can get it"

And Linus waiting for one

Hang in there, Big Guy!

Happy Great Pumpkin Day!