Nutritious, Tasty & Easy Energy Cookies

I can’t remember where I originally found this recipe- a magazine, a blog, a YouTube video- I just remember writing it down and loving it. I love using it like a framework- you can play around endlessly with different combinations of ingredient variations to keep things exciting! They genuinely taste like a treat and are more nutritionally substantial than most muffins or breakfast pastries, meaning you could send a kiddo who won’t eat breakfast out the door with some and feel like you’ve won. They’re also a fantastic pumping or nursing snack, and you can freeze batches of them for up to a few months. Just pop em in a container on the counter the night before you wanna eat em so they thaw- you can even warm them up in a toaster oven or microwave in the morning if you feel luxurious.

Ingredients:

2 bananas, as ripe as possible (I use frozen and thawed ones. You know, the ones that turn black before you throw them in the freezer in an act of food-waste-avoiding desperation?)

1 cup of nut/seed butter (I like natural chunky peanut butter or almond butter)

1/2 cup milk of choice

Aprox 1/4 cup of honey or sweetener of choice (sugar in the raw or maple syrup work great too)

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp of cinnamon (if you like spiced sweets, you could also get creative and throw in a bit of cardamom, nutmeg, clove, and/or ginger!)

Pinch of salt

2 cups rolled oats

1 cup chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans, almonds, etc)

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1 cup dried fruit (I like dried tart cherries, cranberries, blueberries, or raisins)

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips/chunks

Optional toppings/fixins: flax seeds, coarse sugar or salt, sesame seeds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mash bananas until mostly smooth in a mixing bowl

Incorporate all wet ingredients (sweetener, milk, nut butter, vanilla) and spices (cinnamon/etc, and salt)

Stir in all remaining dry ingredients to make a thick sticky mixture

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (or grease it, but parchment saves dishes) and spoon on heaping tablespoonful mounds (press down slightly on the tops to flatten, they won't spread)

Bake for about 15 minutes and let them cool completely

*They’ll keep in an airtight container at room temp for about 5 days*

Note: you could really play around with this basic format and sub different variations out for each ingredient category. I’m interested in trying a canned pumpkin puree in place of banana, or maybe even applesauce. Using different spices, dried fruits, nut and seed butters, and fillings/toppings could infinitely change this up. That being said, the basic outline is still delicious in its simplicity! Enjoy.