I’ve pumpkin-ified your favourite vegan oatmeal cookies. Oh and stuffed some vegan cream cheese frosting inside. It’s a good day.

In comparison, the past few weeks have not been as fab. Riding on an emotional roller coaster, I lost all motivation to do anything: to go beast-mode during my workouts, to cook decent meals, to attend classes, to create new recipes, to do homework. It was an internal struggle of being too burnt out to be productive but then feeling super guilty for not getting anything done. I was also at a dumbfound trying to figure out what to do with my life next term, wavering between pursuing dietetics as planned or to focus on our dream (that could be an entire essay on it’s own). After an anthropometric tutorial in one of my classes, the residue of my past eating disorder flared up with depressing thoughts about not exercising enough and feeling fat again.

All my friends were consumed with their own exams and deadlines and my family was away for vacation; I felt lonely and useless. The only beacon of light would be the weekend, when I would experience a surge of happiness from meeting up with friends for dinner or carving Halloween pumpkins. (By the way, our Halloween costumes were out of this world. You should check ’em out!) But once the school week started, I’d go back to sitting in my little puddle of self pity.

After a few deep chats with my best friends, of which some took place deliriously at 3am , I straightened up my messy life and regained a sense of productivity. It’s amazing what a few chick flicks, singing until your voice is hoarse, and a box of freshly baked cookies does to relieve stress. Since I didn’t have to work, I spent a few nights at Chew’s place. We watched movies, karaoked to old Taylor Swift and Christmas songs into make-shift mics (they were actually tulip-shaped pens), and ate a bunch of the cookies we made this past weekend. Mmmm, yaaas, mmmm~

My flow creative juices were returning so Chew and I put our heads together, currated a list of recipes for the next two months (CHRISTMAS IS COMING YA’LL!) and cranked out four new recipes, with these Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookie Sandwiches being one of them. They are the fall rendition of the very popular Vegan Walnut Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies from our recipe archives. These soft-baked cookies are pleasantly spiced with everyone’s favourite fall spice blend: pumpkin pie spice. While these cookies are great on their own, a smear of simple vegan cream cheese frosting in the middle turns them into a bakery-worthy treat. You might wanna double this entire recipe in case you need to share.