cookie love + a recipe

I’m no cookie connoisseur, but I do know and appreciate a moist, chewy, delicious cookie when I taste one…or two…or three… and as far as I’m concerned, a homemade cookie is the best kind of cookie. Nothing beats a cookie baked with love.

And so I try. And because I’m damn good at following directions, I can make a cookie—in fact, more than a single cookie—that some may say are not too shabby. A select few may have gone as far as to call my cookies delightful, and some have even heralded a cookie or two of mine as yummy.

Now you!

Here is a recipe for a batch of cookies that are especially popular and also a handy way to use up some over-ripe bananas, which I often end up with because I have a very particular preference when it comes to bananas (just ripe enough to not be chalky, still with light green edges with a hint of tartness):

Banana Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies (not pictured)
(find the original recipe here)

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1 cup margarine/butter (pick your poison)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cloves (I don’t even know what cloves look like – if you don’t either, go ahead and leave them out)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 ripe bananas (at least brown speckle stage)
2 cups rolled oats (I always end up adding some more – if the mix is real wet, I figure it can take some more oats, right?)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Action Plan:
Step 1 - Preheat oven to 375˚ (NOTE: Preheating the oven is quite often the first step, but I usually wait until right before Step 5 to actually preheat the oven. If your oven is a super-slow heating oven, or if you’re a super-fast executor of recipes, maybe stick with the Step 1 placement? Otherwise, no need to waste the gas/electricity.)

Step 2 - Cream butter + sugar together until smooth. Add eggs and vanilla.

Step 3 - Mix flour, baking soda, cloves + cinnamon together in a separate bowl. Add in small portions to the butter/sugar mixture, mixing each portion in well before adding more.

Pre-Step 4 - Mash up the ripe bananas.

Step 4 - Add the mashed bananas, rolled oats + choc chips to the cookie dough mixture.

Step 5 - Drop rounded spoonfuls of dough onto ungreased cookies sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes at 375˚. Remove from oven and cool on a windowsill or somewhere else where the pleasant aroma may be a blessing to all who happen to wander by.

(Serves a lot probably…I usually half the recipe for manageable, non-bake sale, share-with-your-office-buddies quantities.)

Enjoy! Happy baking + cookie loving!