Love and Pumpkin. Preferably both.

I love this girl.

She is Steve's sister, and is alternately called Teen, Bean, Tina, and Christina. If you ever walk into a hospital and see her in the white coat, you thank your lucky stars because you've landed in the best medical care you're ever gonna find. She teaches me so much about how to assemble myself in a semi-cute way, what fearlessness looks like, how to shake off the words others sometimes throw at you, and how to be confident in myself--just the way I am.

For all these things and many, many more: I just adore this girl. I love her so much, I wanted to make her favorite cookies on her most recent visit home. Howeva...

I love her so much, I could not bear to make her cookies with 2, count 'em, TWO sticks of butter. That's like 1/2 a tablespoon of butter per cookie.

Teen's Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies.

• 1 C. white flour
• 1 C. wheat flour
• 1 1/3 C. steel cut oats
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. allspice
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2/3 C. sugar
• 2/3 C. brown sugar
• 2/3 C. applesauce
• 2 T. agave nectar (or honey!)
• 1 T. ground flax
• about 1 C. fresh pumpkin puree (or you can use the canned stuff, I just happened to have the real deal in the freezer)
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• chocolate chips in the amount of your liking (I used about 6 oz.)

Combine the flours, oats, spices, baking soda and salt in one mixing bowl. In another, mix the sugars, applesauce, agave, flax, pumpkin and vanilla just until combined. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, about 1/3 at a time. Add the chocolate chips, then spoon onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper (or not. I like p. paper because it makes clean-up a breeze and I think it keeps the flavor a little more pure, but that's just my craziness.). Bake for 10-12 minutes at 350 and try not to burn your tongue.

Here's the best part: I baked about 12 cookies, which was about half the dough, then rolled the rest up in some wax paper, froze it, and sent Teen on her merry way back to NYC with some ready-to-bake, stuffed-with-love, just-a-touch-on-the-healthier-side cookie dough. Or she doesn't even have to bake it--no eggs! Eat it raw if you want to, Teen! I won't tell anyone!

And speaking of 1%... These cookies can swing either way! If you're working your way slowly into the quinoa side of life, tinker with the flour and sugars a bit. If your personal pendulum is presently swinging the way of the pizza, go all in! Use 2 sticks of butter! I promise I'll still love ya.