Taste of Tuesday: Banana Oat Breakfast Cookies

Hi everyone!

I'm linking up with Ashley from Let's Get Bananas and Jessica from Blissfully Miller for Taste of Tuesday!  Today I'm sharing a recipe I originally found on Pinterest (from the blog Watching What I Eat) and decided to try out a couple of weeks ago for a craaazy weekend at work. I wanted an easy to grab, tasty and good for you breakfast to eat when I knew I would be snoozing my alarm till the very last minute before work - these fit the bill!

Also, I apologize for the seriously gross photos - I was cooking these at 11pm, hence the horrible lighting. I was kicking myself as I took them....

Banana Oat Breakfast Cookies
*Adapted from Watching What I Eat

What you need: 
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 cup peanut butter (your choice - creamy or chunky!)
2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups quick oats or old fashioned oats (I used a mixture of both since I was low!)
1/4 cup chopped nuts
1/4 cup chocolate chips

*optional: 1 scoop vanilla protein powder, 1 tsp butter flavor extract

What you do:
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the mashed banana and peanut butter until combined.

3. Add the applesauce, the extract(s), and the optional protein powder to the peanut butter/banana mix and stir until combined.

4. Add the oatmeal, nuts, and chocolate chips to the mixture and stir, stir, stir until it's all mixed together!

5. Let the "dough" sit for 10 minutes.

6. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
7. Drop the "dough" onto the cookie sheet by the spoonful, aiming for 16 smaller cookies or 12 large ones.

8. Bake the cookies for 20-30 minutes until they reach your preferred state of "done" - I recommend a longer baking time to dry out the cookies a bit, mine ended up being kind of wet and soggy especially after a couple of days in a container.
9. Let the cookies rest for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet and then transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Store the cookies in a covered container, and if it gets past a couple of days, consider putting them in the fridge so they don't get... unedible. Enjoy the cookies in the morning or as a snack - both options are delish!

xx, Amy

Taste of Tuesday: Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Hi everyone!

Boy, do I have a treat for you today! Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Um, yum.

The boyfriend requested oatmeal chocolate chip cookies a couple of weeks ago and I jumped at the chance to do some baking. I looked through Pinterest a little and came across some of my pins from Sally of Sally's Baking Addiction's Pinterest. After perusing her blog for a little bit, I found a recipe that looked a) simple and b) delicious. Making a recipe of hers had been on my to do list for a while - her site makes me drool regularly - but since I don't have a hand mixer at school, I had to wait to bake until I was at my parents' house (and had access to my mom's kitchen!). Perfect timing!

The funny part about this recipe is that, once I told my boyfriend I was getting started on these cookies, he texts me, "I don't even know why I asked for these, I don't really like oatmeal cookies." What? Then why did you ask for them? I'm making them anyway! When he tasted them, he was like, "wow. I know I said I didn't usually like oatmeal cookies but I like these!" I'll chalk that up as a win for me! My sister, who is a sweet aficionado but hates oatmeal l o v e d these cookies. I had to force her to take a bite of the dough, just to taste test it, and she was like, "you need to give me more of that.... It's really good."

These cookies are chewy, incredibly moist, and so, so yummy. I wouldn't hate it if there were raisins in there, maybe even some nuts, but that's an experiment for another day. As they are, they are a perfect basic oatmeal chocolate chip cookie.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
3/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 and 2/3 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup mini chocolate chips (or mini M&Ms!)

*Makes approximately 30 cookies.

1. In a large bowl, cream the softened butter and the brown and white sugars with a mixer until smooth.

2. Add in the egg and vanilla and mix again until combined.

3. Stir in the baking soda, cinnamon, oats, and flour. Mix until just combined but do not overmix!

4. Fold in (don't stir) the mini chocolate chips or M&Ms.

How yummy does this look!??

5. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill the dough in the fridge for at least one hour. The dough needs to be very cold! I chilled mine for roughly an hour but I would have preferred to let it chill longer.

6. Hang out, watch some TV or read a magazine, run errands, drink a tasty iced coffee or whatever until your dough is cold.

7. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

8. On ungreased cookie sheets, roll tablespoon sized lumps of dough into balls. Place the balls on the cookie sheet, leaving room between each.

9. Bake each sheet of cookies for 10-11 minutes. The cookies will appear "undone" but they will firm up as they cool - this keeps the cookies moist and chewy!

10. As you take the cookies out of the oven, let them sit and cool on the cookie sheets for a couple of minutes before you transfer them to wire racks. Let them finish cooling on the wire racks, if you can, before devouring with a glass of milk!

A+ photo.... I got skillz, I know

*Note: My boyfriend said these could be bigger and "oat-ier". Next time I will increase the amount of oats either to 1 and 3/4 cups or 2 cups and make the balls a little bit larger before placing them on the cookie sheets. I would add more chocolate to these myself ;)

I hope you enjoy! These were really easy to make. I think I'm pretty proficient in the kitchen but I think the instructions are straightforward enough that anyone could make them... just make sure you stick to the recipe and don't take any shortcuts/skip anything! Let me know if you make them and what you thought :) 

Linking up for Taste of Tuesday with Ashley from Let's Get Bananas and Jessica from Blissfully Miller!