They ain't pretty, but they get the job done. I tell my kids, "We're having cookies for breakfast," and it sounds so much more delicious and exciting than, "We're having blobs of banana baked oatmeal." I can fool everybody but Faith (2), who this morning picked the chocolate chips out of her three cookies and then announced that she was all done. The two-year-old aside, this is my fastest and easiest (and thus favorite) way to use up brown bananas. A bonus is there is no added sugar besides the bananas and the chocolate chips.
Ingredients:
3 brown bananas
1/3 cup applesauce (or another half of a banana)
1/3 cup milk
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups oatmeal
1/4-1/2 cup raisins
1/4-1/2 cup chocolate chips
What to do:
Preheat the oven to 350. Mash the bananas, and then mix in the applesauce, milk, egg, vanilla, and cinnamon (I usually do all of this at the same time with my hand mixer). Stir in the oatmeal, raisins, and chocolate chips, and put in large blobs (about 1/4c) on a parchment-lined baking sheet (the parchment is simply for easy cleanup afterwards; you could also grease the baking sheet). Bake at 350 until the cookies are set and the bottoms are lightly browned -- this will depend on the size of your blobs, but it's usually 15-20 minutes for me.
You can also mix in shredded coconut or a variety of nuts, like almonds or pecans.