Can you believe I just finished off the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers? I barely threw anything away. In fact, my biggest accomplishment in avoiding Thanksgiving food waste was making these delicious pecan pie sugar cookies. Who doesn’t love pecan baked into a sweet treat?
What does this recipe have to do with food waste you might ask. Well, I got the brilliant idea to make mini chocolate chip pecan pies for Thanksgiving. All of us are trying to watch our weight so I figured mini pies would be better than make a full size one. It was a brilliant idea, except I didn’t know how much filling I would need for the smaller pies. With half the filling leftover, I knew I had to whip up something else delicious.
I’ve made a few batches of sugar cookies from scratch in the past, but I’m not up for it this year with two kids. It’s just too long of a process. Betty Crocker prepackaged cookies mixes are so inexpensive that you don’t end up paying much more for the convenience. And you know how cheap baking goods are this time of year.
It was so easy to make these. All I did was follow the directions from the Betty Crocker Cookie pouch to make cookies using cookie cutters. I used a biscuit cutter to make them look a little more old-fashioned. Gotta love a biscuit cutter. A simple circle will work fine though.
Once I had all the cookies punched out, I put 1/2 tablespoon of pecan pie filling on them and sprinkled pecans on top. Easy peasy. I’m not including a recipe for this one since it was spur of the moment. I seriously just used leftovers, and didn’t actually develop a fun recipe. However, if you want to recreate these, just find the recipe for pecan pie filling and make 1/4 of it for 24 cookies.
This recipe was ridiculously easy. I didn’t even mess any of them up in recipe development. You know how much I hate to waste food in the process of developing recipes. It kills me. I did however, have to throw out a few things for Food Waste Friday. I threw out one batch of cookies for another recipe, and I had to toss out some mushy strawberries. I sure to wish I had gotten them to the freezer before they went bad.
How did you do with food waste this week? Let me know in the comments!
Oooh, definitely the easy peanut butter cookie cups! I love the combo of chocolate and peanut butter!
Yum. I also love that combo!
I unfortunately did not end up using all of my Thanksgiving leftovers this week (sad face). We really tried, but just got super burnt out on turkey sandwiches for lunch each day.
I did save mashed potatoes and made potato pancakes for dinner one night!
Our favorite family cookie recipe is the good ol’ peanut butter cookies with Hershey Kisses!
Good job on the potatoes! I’ve never made potato pancakes, we always eat all our mashed potatoes! They sound so good.
We did pretty good this week, probably bc I did not meal plan and bought my ingredients almost every day revisiting the grocery store… Grrr! I did have to throw out some rice, but that was it. Woo hoo!
Hannah, this is a brilliant idea to use up leftover pecan pie filling!
Regarding food waste, I should eat up the last of my homemade cranberries before I have to throw them away. #SmallVictoriesSunday
I’d love it if you entered this post into #thePinterestGame linky party which I co-host. http://www.cookwithashoe.com/general/pinterest-game/
I like the Holiday Tree pops! Happy Holidays!
Yum! These look delicious and easy! #SmallVictories
http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/easy-peanut-butter-cookie-cups/110e9143-f4a6-48ed-84d5-135de2fb28e8
What a neat alternative to the pecan pie. I really love this idea! I would love to make their holiday blossom cookie or even the red velvet cookie cups.
Thanks! Red velvet cookie cups do look delish!
I’d love to make the Christmas Truffles!