I hate throwing away food. It happens though; because I tend to overestimate the amount of fruits and vegetables we can eat before they go bad. So rotting salad fixings and moldy fruit end up in the trash before they make it to the dinner table. A big waste of money. But not bananas.

Bananas are a wonderful thing. Personally, I like my bananas yellow, with spots. Brian likes his the same way, which is perfect because we usually share a sliced banana in our morning cereal. A banana tastes good with a few spots, and a lot of spots. But the beautiful thing is, that once a banana is brown you don't have to throw it away. I used to. But now... I BAKE!

An overripe banana can be transformed into many delicious things! And I can justify eating something baked with banana because it replaces most, if not all, of the butter. So less fat, right??? I ignore the part where I added a full cup of sugar and chocolate chips to the recipe... But heck, when you eat something baked with banana, you can tell yourself "it's fruit."

This morning I made a peanut butter and banana bread. Man! Was it good! I made four mini-loaves instead of one big one; and I gave two of them to my friend Bryce. I froze one because I'm greedy that way... and I ate half of one just because it was there. By they way, it was really yummy.

So far, my favorite banana recipe this year is Banana-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. Sounds kind of funky, but really, these were a super big hit with everyone I shared them with (which was a lot of people actually). Here's the recipe. You'll be hooked:

1/2 cup mashed ripe banana (about 1 medium)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened (see? that's really a SMALL amount of butter!)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups old-fashioned oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I use dark chocolate chips, my chip of choice)
cooking spray (important - these can stick)

Preheat oven to 350.
Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; beat at medium speed until smooth. Add egg, beat well.
Combine flour, oats, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk (I didn't bother with the whisk - a spoon seemed to work fine). Add flour mixture to banana mixture and beat at medium speed until blended. Stir in chips.
Drop batter by heaping tablespoonfulls (who measures???) 2 inches apart onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350 for 18 minutes until golden (mine took a few minutes longer). Remove cookies from pans and cool completely on wire rack.

Enjoy! These are soooooo yummy! And share with friends so you don't eat them all! (I admit. Again, I'm greedy, so I always freeze some for later.)

Note to self: Baking banana goodies does NOT fight the fluff. But, it's the last day of the year, so I really don't have to get serious about that until tomorrow...