Banana Bread Cookies

Last year sometime I found myself with an abundance of over-ripe bananas. I didn't want to throw them away and while I will freeze many things I do not like freezing over-ripe bananas...I'm just weird that way. So I did what I always do and went on a search for banana recipes. I came across this recipe and it has been a hit ever since! My family loves these cookies (when I share, which I will not be doing today since these are headed to a bake sale!)

Banana Bread Cookies
(Recipe originally found here)
Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees

* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* 1 cup butter, softened
* 2 eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (if you are really cool, I'll use my Mexican vanilla but this is just for a bake sale so extract it is!)
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 3 ripe bananas, mashed
* 2 cups rolled oats
* 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I really just use whatever chocolate chips I have, which happened to be milk chocolate yesterday)

(Don't those bananas look gross? But when they look like that, they make the best banana bread and the best banana bread cookies! Some people freeze them when they look like this until they are ready to use them but black bananas in my freezer gross me out!)

In the bowl of your mixer cream together the butter and sugars until creamy.

Beat in the eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl stir together the flour, baking soda, and cinnamon. (Random fact: Growing up, I always wanted stainless steel bowls like I saw on the cooking shows. I always thought that to be a real cook/baker you had to have stainless steel bowls, so one of the first things I bought when I got married was a set of stainless steel bowls. I don't feel like I'm really baking if I'm not mixing it up in the steel bowls!)

Add to the creamed mixture and mix well.
Mix in the mashed bananas, oats, and chocolate chips until well incorporated. Drop by rounded spoonful onto a greased cookie sheet and bake 10 to 12 minutes.
Cool on a wire rack.