I’m exhausted, but I promised I would post this recipe this evening for some of my friends.

The weather has been amazing the past couple of days and it’s really lifted my mood up. Boo and I have enjoyed some time in the sun while the weather’s been warm. I’m hoping we’re finally over winter because it’s gone on too damn long and I’m tired of being cooped up in the apartment all the time. I think Boo is, too.

Anyway, I woke up in a great mood this morning and decided it was a good day to make cookies.

And, of course, as soon as I posted the photo to my Facebook, everyone wanted the recipe.

I will preface this by saying this is not a recipe I came up with. I found it a while back, wrote it down on a sticky note, and I keep it on my fridge for those days that I really, really, really need chocolate chip cookies in my life. (Which, let’s face it, is pretty much all the time. I’m not ashamed to admit it, but I only make them occasionally.) It makes a perfectly soft cookie that isn’t overly sweet. When we don’t have any chocolate chips at home, sometimes I’ll make them anyway, without the chips, and they still turn out delicious.

For the cookies, you will need:

• 2 sticks (or 1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp milk
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 1/4 cups
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 12-oz bag (or 2 cups) chocolate chips

First, preheat your oven to 375°.

Cream together your butter and your sugar first. I prefer using a mixer for this, but you can easily mix by hand with a spoon, you just have to work at it a little more. Once everything is creamed well, add in your eggs, vanilla, and milk, and mix well to combine. (Note: if you mix by hand, you most likely won’t need to add the milk. I’ve noticed that when I use the hand mixer, the cookies turn out a little bit dry, so the milk is necessary. When I mix the dough by hand, I don’t need it.) I usually add the salt into the wet mixture at this point as well.

In a separate bowl, mix your flour and baking soda. (And salt, if you didn’t add it into the wet ingredients.) Mix well before adding it into the wet ingredients. I usually mix half of the flour first, and once that’s just about combined, I add the other half of the flour. Ditch the hand mixer for this part. When the flour is almost totally mixed in, add in your chocolate chips. Do not over mix the dough! As soon as you see no more dry spots, you’re ready to begin spooning it out.

It’s up to you on how big you want your cookies, but a tablespoon of dough or so for each cookie is what I usually use. Spoon them out onto a pan, leave at least an inch of space between each cookie, and pop the pan into the oven for 8-10 minutes. The cookies don’t spread too much as they cook.

Once the bottom has begun to brown, and the cookie no longer looks wet, pull your pan out and let the cookies sit on it for at least five minutes before removing them.

Sometimes, I change the recipe up a little bit. You can substitute some of the granulated sugar for brown sugar if you’d like; it changes the texture and the taste of the cookie only slightly, but it’s really up to you on what you like. (I usually use about half and half of each.) I will occasionally put cinnamon in the dough if I’m feeling a little adventurous, but my boyfriend prefers the cookies without. He’s a purist when it comes to a good chocolate chip cookie.

As I said, this isn’t my recipe and I’m not taking credit for it! It just happens to be the one I wrote down and stuck to my refrigerator. It’s one of my absolute favorites and I hope the rest of you enjoy it as well.

I told myself that when I started this blog, I wanted to stay away from posting recipes. I wanted to avoid becoming just another recipe blog, but after a few requests to share this one, I thought maybe a recipe now and then wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

A week or two ago, I bought a few bananas from the store to make some healthy cookies for my toddler using bananas, applesauce, dried cranberries, and oats. She ate them the first day and wanted nothing to do with them after that. Most of them ended up in the trash. (If I’m being honest, the texture was kind of strange anyway, so I can’t really blame her for not eating them again.)

I ended up with several bananas leftover, though, and no idea what to do with them. Obviously, Boo didn’t like my cookies, so I had to do something else. First, I thought banana bread, but that can get a little messy once you start cutting it into slices. Then, I thought banana muffins, but there was just way too much sugar in most recipes for my liking. Instead, I started digging around for a recipe that used no added sugar in the hopes of finding something I would be comfortable with feeding my child.

I found two recipes that looked good, but neither of them really spoke to me. I ended up creating my own recipe (sort of) based on the two I’d been looking at and they were delicious! I’m quite pleased with how they turned out. Boo seemed happy with them, too, which was the ultimate goal.

So, without further ado, here’s the recipe I managed to come up with for my banana oat muffins.

You will need:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 cup quick oats
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 ripe bananas
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp oil or melted butter
• 2 tsp vanilla

Preheat your oven to 350° while you make the batter.

Mash up the bananas well and mix in the rest of the wet ingredients. Make sure those are thoroughly combined. (I also add the salt at this point, but you can also add the salt to the dry ingredients and it would still turn out just the same.)

In a separate bowl, combine all the dry ingredients except for the oats. I always add them last. Once the dry ingredients are well combined, add them to the wet and begin to stir them together. When everything is almost mixed, add the oats and continue to stir until you no longer see any dry flour. At this point, you can also fold in any mix-ins. I used about 1/2 cup of grated carrot. You could also add raisins, nuts, or maybe blueberries if those interested you. To make them even healthier, you could also use whole wheat flour. I just used plain, unbleached white because that’s what I had on hand.

Pour the batter evenly into a muffin pan (this makes 12 muffins total) and bake for 16-18 minutes. Let them cool a few minutes before taking them out of the pan.

I would have taken more photos of the muffins themselves, but I didn’t realize when I made them that I’d be making this post. Next time I’ll take more!

Happy baking!