Homemade Pumpkin Bars with Chocolate Chips

Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope you're having a lovely and happy day.  Today, was my first Thanksgiving off in 11 years.  Feels good!!!  :)  My husband and I decided to have our own dinner at home and to have a Modern Family Marathon.  If you haven't seen this show check it out.  It's so funny!

I got in a baking mood this morning.  I baked some french loafs, and I cooked a pumpkin and then made pumpkin bars with it.

Here's the little pie pumpkin that I used.  I got it from the farmers market back in September.  I washed it real good and then cut it in half.  I then scooped out the seeds (placed them to the side to clean and dry out) and I placed the pumpkin halves cut side down in a pie dish.  (The pumpkin was very small)  I cooked the pumpkin on 350 degrees for about a half an hour until a fork poked pierced through.  Once it was done, I put the pumpkin on a cutting board and let it cool for about 15 minutes.  I then took the pulp which came off the rind really easily and ground it in my mini food processor.  Bigger pumpkins have a lot of water so you'll need to filter the water out.  This little guy didn't have much water at all.  I got 1 cup of pumpkin from this little guy which was perfect b/c that's what I needed to make my pumpkin bars.

I searched on pinterest for pumpkin bars and came across this on at the live in kitchen.

I changed up some things.  Here's what I did instead.

2 cups unbleached flour

1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 sticks unsalted butter (room temp)

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 farm fresh eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract (I used my homemade vanilla)

1 cup real pumpkin pulp

1 pkg (2 cups) chocolate chips

I first mixed the dry ingredients in a bowl.  In another bowl I mixed the wet ingredients.  I then mixed in the dry to the wet until all combined.  After it was mixed I mixed in the chocolate chips.  I put the batter into a squared brownie pan that I first sprayed with PAM spray.  I baked on 350 degrees until my cake tester came out clean.  It was about 35 minutes.

These are so good and perfect.  My husband and I love them a lot.  I know I'll be making these again.

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