Monkey Bites: Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

In my quest for the perfect snack, there are several qualities I'm looking for.  Taste, of course, comes first, because otherwise, why bother?  But I want it to be healthy, and that means fresh ingredients, minimally processed.  That's not so easy.  Forget anything in the grocery store:  those cookies and snacks are meant to be edible for months, which means most of them have weird chemicals I'm just not comfortable with.  Also, refined sugar and flour have had the most nutritious parts stripped out of them, so they're not much of a boon to a growing child (or a trying-not-to-grow-larger adult!)


An added bonus for a recipe is if it's frugal in some way - using an ingredient I already have, or one that might otherwise be thrown away.  Chances are you might have one or more of these at your house:

Mmm, squishy!

And while I love banana bread as much as the next girl (if not more), I don't want to eat it every two weeks.  So this recipe saved the day for some overripe bananas - an automatic point in its favor!

After cruising around the internet, I synthesized a recipe that really meets the perfect snack criteria.  No added sugar, no flour, no eggs, and aside from the chocolate chips, no dairy.  Not that any of those things are bad, necessarily, but if I can make something without allergens, refined foods, or irritants, why not?  I bet these would be yummy with walnuts, but my girl is allergic, so I'll leave that experiment up to you.  Please try it out and let me know how it goes!

Monkey Bites!  (Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies)

Ingredients:

• 3 overripe bananas
• 2 cups oats
• 3 tablespoons coconut oil (or you can use butter)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3/4 cup (or about half a bag) chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.  Lightly grease cookie sheet (or use a Silpat liner - they're awesome!)
2. In a large bowl, mash bananas with a fork.  Stir in the rest of the ingredients, mixing well.
3. Using a spoon and a fork, scoop a largish tablespoon of cookie dough onto the baking sheet.  You're going to have to mold it into shape.  Mine are about 2" in diameter, and about 1/4" high.  Try to make them uniform in size so they bake evenly.
4. Bake for 15-20 minutes, depending on how you like them.  They won't get really crispy, but you don't want them too squishy either.

I eat these with my afternoon cup of coffee.  My kids would eat them all in one sitting if I let them.