Updated Vegan Pumpkin Oat Chocolate Chunk Cookies

For the past few days I've been craving something sweet.  Usually I kill this with a bowl of cereal with fresh almond milk as dessert.  But last week I visited Pratima for an Ayurvedic consult and seeing as I'm a strong Vata, all things cold are out of my diet for the time being.  No cold food or drinks!  So cold cereal and mylk is out as well.

This afternoon I decided it was time to pull out the recipe book and bake something yummy for later.  I decided on these pumpkin oat chocolate walnut cookies updated from these. They were one of my favorites before, but these are even better than the originals. With just a few tweaks they are total winners.  Avi's already snuck four and Richie isn't eating his dinner to save room for more (Avi shoved one in his mouth upon walking through the door).

So, with no further adieu:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 1/3 cups rolled oats
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp sea salt
• 2 tbsp flax meal
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp cloves
• 1 1/3 cups brown rice syrup
• 2/3 cup coconut oil
• 1 tbsp agave
• 1 cup canned (organic) pumpkin
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 1 bar of bittersweet chocolate (I used Dagoba Organic) chopped
• 1 cup walnuts chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper.
3. In a bowl combine the flour, oats, baking soda, salt, flax, and spices and mix.
4. In a separate bowl combine the rice syrup, coconut oil, agave, pumpkin, and vanilla.
5. Incorporate the dry ingredients with the wet adding little by little until fully mixed.
6. Add the chocolate and walnuts and mix.
7. Drop the cooking onto the baking sheets (should make apx. 32 cookies) and bake for 8 minutes, then turn the pans, and bake for another 8 minutes.
8. Cool on a rack then serve (they're good a little warm;)).