Banana Oatmeal Cookies

Thanks to Pinterest I have a new way to use up over ripened bananas.

We were invited to dinner at our friends' house last night and asked to bring the dessert. I had 3 bananas that had past their peak and was looking for something to do with them, other than banana bread. Pinterest to the rescue!

I forgot to take a picture so this one is from LLS

I came across this pin for Banana Oatmeal Cookies by Life, Love & Sugar. She has a bunch of other delicious-looking treats, you should check her out. These were super simple to make and were a huge hit. They maintained their "banana-y" flavor, which I love and to make them a little more dessert-like and less "breakfasty" I added mini semi-sweet chocolate chips to half the batch. Next time I'll probably add some chopped walnuts or maybe some ground flax seeds to up the nutrition.

Here's the recipe:

Yield: makes 34-36 cookies

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter 
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed 
• 1/2 cup sugar 
• 1 egg 
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 
• 1 cup mashed bananas (3-4 bananas depending on size)
• 1 1/2 cups flour 
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon 
• 1 tsp baking soda 
• 1/4 tsp cloves 
• 2 tsp cornstarch 
• 3 cups old fashioned oats
• optional additions:
• mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
• chopped walnuts
• dried strawberries
• flax seeds (ground or whole)

Instructions

1. Mix together butter, brown sugar, sugar, egg, vanilla extract and mashed bananas until well combined. 
2. Add flour, cinnamon, baking soda, cloves and cornstarch and mix until combined. 
3. Stir in oats. This is where you could add any of the above additions. 
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
5. Spoon tablespoons of dough onto a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. Flatten dough a little bit, into thick discs. They will spread a little when baked. 
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until edges just start to golden. 
7. Remove from oven and cool on cookie sheet for 3-4 minutes, then move to cooling rack to finish cooling.