Thursday, April 17, 2008

Banana Buddies, Just Be Farm and Color

Dan and I are awesome "banana buddies." He eats the bananas when they are still slightly green, while I like to wait until they're a bit more ripe. We usually manage our weekly bunch of bananas from the Co-op pretty well, though there are a few times when I fall behind on my part and they go over-ripe.

I've got a bunch of great banana recipes for these over-ripe ones, but didn't feel like making any of them this week. So I turned to the Internet for new ideas and was excited to find a "healthy" recipe for banana oatmeal cookies. The link for the original recipe is here (not the first recipe, but the "healthier" one posted in the comments), but I'm sharing it below too since it wasn't very fleshed out on the original post.

Banana Oatmeal Cookies

WET
• 1/2 stick butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup mashed banana (I just used one medium, over-ripe banana and called it even)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sweetened, shredded coconut (I only had unsweetened on hand, but it didn't matter)
• 1 1/2 tsp grated orange zest

DRY
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup raisins

Mix wet ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk dry ingredients separately then add to large bowl. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes at 350 degrees.

These turned out REALLY tasty but my yield was just under two dozen cookies so I would definitely double the recipe. The only hard part now is keeping Jackson's (and my) hands out of them until after lunch today!
__________________________
How could I have forgotten my dear friend Kristina's farm in my "favorite farms" post the other day?! Just Be Farm is a little piece of heaven in New Mexico where my Farmgirl Friend and her beau live with their multiple animals and gazillions of garden plants. She cooks, cans, knits and does just about everything by hand too. I still can't believe that I haven't met Kristina in person. Someday...

And to answer Kristina's question from her last comment on baby colors, I LOVE grass green for babies these days. In fact, I love it so much that I've talked my sister into knitting the Angel Sweater for Gigi in green! Seriously though, pink IS good...I just prefer pale pinks to "loud" pinks. Grass greens are my new favorites (and look so very adorable with pale pinks) and lemon yellows are lovely too. But then there's that gorgeous lavender that I'm using for the dedication sweater...and I love a little girl in a gorgeous periwinkle blue too! Bring on the color!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the recipe!! I've got bananas sitting in the freezer that need cooking up. I'm going to make these tonight!

My husband and I are banana buddies too, but I'm the one eating the green ones.

Anonymous said...

They were great! I didn't use as much sugar, and I also used unsweetened coconut because I don't like things too sweet, but they were delicious, thanks for the recipe.

Aunt Jenny said...

The recipe sounds great. That is so nice that you guys are banana buddies. We sure arn't here ...all 6 of us (and my three grown boys too) all like ours with a little green. We are big banana eaters though, so we rarely have overripe ones unless it is on purpose. You know who DOES like the extra ripe ones though? Mona! and the goat will eat the peeling...so no waste there!! I am going to try that recipe for sure soon. I made oatmeal cookies today (one of my sons is leaving on a campout with scouts and needed a treat to share) and used dried blueberries in them.

Anonymous said...

Aw, shucks--thanks for the shout-out. =) I went with my gut on the color question before I saw your post. I'm excited for you to see how well my guess and your answer lined up....

As for that banana cookie recipe, as soon as a banana survives long enough to get over-ripe in our house, I'm making 'em!