Banana Oatmeal Cookies

Over ripe bananas... What to do? I already have a batch of banana chocolate chip muffins in the fridge. Banana chocolate chip pancakes? Nah... Banana cookies? Tell me more Google!

I looked at a few recipes and pretty much went with Taste of Home and the Cooking Channel's versions. They're pretty much the same except the Cooking Channel uses shortening and creams the sugar and shortening, whereas Taste of Home uses butter and tells you to cut the butter into the flour.

I despise cutting butter / shortening into flour. (Although, using the food processor works wonders for this but I was not interested in taking that out and then washing it later either.) My other issue was that I prefer butter in my cookies than shortening. Based on these two complaints, I did a slight combination of the two recipes, plus a few substitutions of my own... 1/2 c white granulated sugar and 1/2 c brown sugar (because I ran out of granulated sugar) and 1/2 c whole wheat flour with 1 c AP flour.

The result? Pretty tasty. I think I like these more than the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. The oatmeal gives it a little texture. Hubby did not like these. I have yet to make something with whole wheat flour that he finds tolerable or tasty. Mr A, on the other hand, liked these enough that he was sneaking 1 or 2 in the mornings for several days in a row!

Banana Oatmeal Cookies

Adapted from Taste of Home and the Cooking Channel

1 c all-purpose flour 
1/2 c whole wheat flour 
1/2 c granulated sugar 
1/2 c brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt 
1/2 teaspoon baking soda 
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg 
3/4 c butter, softened 
1 egg  
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2) 
1-3/4 cups quick-cooking oats 
1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips


Directions:

1. In a bowl, combine the first six ingredients; beat in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add egg, bananas and oats; mix well. Stir in chocolate chips.
2. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto greased baking sheets. Bake at 375° for 13-15 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire racks. Yield: 4 dozen.