There’s nothing better than a perfectly ripe banana. They’re so good in so many things: hot or cold cereal, peanut butter sandwiches and ice cream. Sliced, mashed, baked, roasted, grilled, dried into chips or frozen and covered with chocolate, these sweet tropical treats are America’s favorite fruit.
On the flip side, there’s hardly anything worse than a mushy black banana that’s been lurking in the fruit bowl too long.
Each day, people around the world toss out an estimated 1.4 million bananas. Think how much banana bread that could make! All the world’s geopolitical turmoil would cease because we’d be too busy baking and eating banana bread.
The good news is that you never need to throw out a single banana, no matter how black and mushy it gets. Well, you should definitely throw it out if it’s moldy. But before it gets to that point, peel it and put it into a plastic baggie and toss it in your freezer. Use the frozen bananas in fruit smoothies or thaw them and use them the same way you’d use freshly mashed bananas.
I’ve heard that you can also leave the peel or freeze the peels separately; freezing and thawing softens the peels so that they can be pureed and used along with bananas. I haven’t tried this, although I recently read that banana peels take two years to decompose in a landfill. It’s definitely more sustainable if they decompose in my stomach in the form of a digestible baked good.
Banana bread might be the most common way to use mushy bananas, but sadly, I am not a master of banana bread; my loaves are merely passable. My absolute favorite way to use past-ripe bananas is in Banana Oatmeal Cookies. They’re just so satisfying and full of banana flavor. I love the hearty oats, crunchy nuts, chewy raisins and sweet chocolate chips. They’re hard to resist as an afternoon snack with milk, but I also enjoy them for breakfast. You can make them more suitable for breakfast by omitting the chocolate chips and adding more dried fruits and nuts. Or keep the chocolate chips. You’re already eating cookies for breakfast, so what’s the harm?
I’ve made the recipe many times to get it just right. I’ve tried lots of different mix-ins like dried cranberries, dates and crystallized ginger. One time I tried to use peanuts in these cookies but that tasted terrible. We still ate them, though. We’re resilient like that.
First, take 3 medium-sized thawed bananas and mash them in a small bowl with 1 large egg, 1 tablespoon molasses and 1 teaspoon vanilla. The mixture will have a lot of liquid in it but that’s fine. Set it aside.
In a large bowl, sift together 1½ cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon baking soda, ½ teaspoon each cinnamon, ginger and cardamom and ¼ teaspoon each nutmeg and cloves. Work in a stick of softened salted butter with a pastry cutter or your fingers until the mixture is crumbly.
Add the mashed bananas to the dry mixture along with 1¾ cups rolled oats and stir until the dough is evenly wet, then mix in ½ cup chocolate chips, ½ cup raisins and ½ cup pecans or walnuts. Blend everything well. You should end up with a nice, moist dough that’s easy to work with.
Use a tablespoon to drop dough onto a greased baking sheet about 2 inches apart. The blobs may look small on the baking sheet but don’t be tempted to go crazy and make mega-cookies. These will spread out a little bit as they bake, and you’ll end up with a sensibly sized cookie that’s the right circumference and heft to last through a cup of tea (if you take small bites). Bake in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until the cookies start to turn golden brown. Cool on wire racks.
The moist bananas in the dough might make these stick together in the cookie jar, but of all the challenges you could have right now, that’s probably among the least troubling. Besides, if life gives you two cookies stuck together, that’s definitely a sign that you should eat them both.
