mini pumpkin rolls

hey y'all--it's almost fall! which means that one of my favorite food items is back in play--pumpkin! So far this almost-fall week I've had these delicious mini pumpkin rolls and also a pumpkin cream cheese spread. My mom made the latter for me so I have yet to finagle that recipe from her, but I made the mini pumpkin rolls so here goes:

MINI FALL PUMPKIN PIE CROISSANTS—makes 32

2 Tubes Pillsbury crescent rolls

4 oz. (1/2 block) of softened cream cheese 
1 cup of canned pumpkin
1 – 2 T pumpkin pie spice (adjust to taste)
3 – 4 T sugar (granulated or powdered; adjust to taste if you want the filling sweeter)

Start with 2 tubes of Pillsbury refrigerated crescent rolls. Roll each crescent roll out and cut lengthwise in 2.
Beat the cream cheese, pumpkin, and 1T of spice together until fluffy and spread about one teaspoon of filling over each triangle of dough. Roll into croissant shape.
Mix together 4 T sugar and 1 T pumpkin pie spice and roll each pumpkin pie croissant in it.

Bake at 375* for about 13-15 minutes (this time is for on a baking stone) – you want them to be lightly browned and the dough baked through.

I used allspice instead of cinnamon which gave it a little different flavor. Also, I thought that the pumpkin spread inside could have been a little sweeter--it may have been because we didn't use the cinnamon, but somewhere between a teaspoon to tablespoon of sugar could have been a real benefit to this recipe. 

I enjoyed using the crescent roll dough, but I know that pillsbury also makes a roll of pastry dough (as does Pepperidge farm) that is safe for me to eat and I almost wonder if this would be better in a jelly roll format. These are great and bite sized, so a nice hors d'oeuvre shape, but a jelly roll/pastry dough version of this recipe could be better for say Thanksgiving dessert.

As a side note (side dish), check out this interesting article I saw on CNN about Food Allergies cost. I obviously don't have the issues of my family losing productivity time to be protective about my allergies, but I can tell you that my food budget is unbelievably more in the post-food allergy age.

And now I'm off to return the "cherry tarts" my mom bought for me yesterday which are most definitely strawberry...it'll be interesting to see the reaction at the store.