BANANA OATMEAL BREAKFAST COOKIES

Banana Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies

INGREDIENTS

• 1 Ripe and Spotty Banana
• 1 1/2 cups Gluten-Free Rolled Oats, divided
• 2 tbsp Unsweetened Applesauce (I used milk)
• 1 tbsp Maple Syrup, for added sweetness (Optional)
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1/3 cup chopped Walnuts, or another Nut of choice
• Needs some kind of fat - Peanut Butter, Butter, or Coconut Oil 

1. First, Preheat the oven to 350F. Peel the ripe Banana and break it off into “chunks” in a medium bowl. Mash the Banana with a fork until it forms a paste.
2. Next, add 1/2 cup of the Rolled Oats to a blender and process for 30 seconds, or until a fine flour forms. Add the Oat Flour, remaining Oatmeal, Applesauce, optional Maple Syrup, Cinnamon, Baking Powder, and Salt to the bowl with the Banana. Mix until everything is evenly incorporated.
3. Fold the chopped Walnuts into the batter, then line or grease a Baking Tray. Use around 3 tbsp of batter to form a “Cookie”, then press each Cookie onto the Tray – they will not spread out in the oven, so shape them how you’d like them to be!
4. Bake for 15 minutes, flip, then bake for an additional 5-7 minutes.
5. Once cool, store in a loosely covered container at room temperature for up to 5 days. You can also freeze these and reheat as needed!

Evan's Yummy Veggie Pancakes!

I've been a bit remiss over the past couple months...I've been creating some new recipes and not posting them here....I have been posting them on FB.
So, now I'm going to play catchup!

Evan's Yummy Veggie Pancakes
2 medium zucchini grated with some of the water pressed out
2 tsp fresh parsley
½ cup shredded cheese
¾ cup flour
½ cup corn meal
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
Salt and pepper

Use an ice cream dipper to scoop batter onto griddle drizzled with olive oil (or bacon fat if you are feeling decadent!) and press down to flatten slightly.
Cook to golden brown.
Serve with plain yogurt, salsa, apple sauce and/or sour cream.

All 3 of my boys think this is one of the BEST uses for all of the zucchini coming from our garden and the CSA!

Home-made Applesauce/Fruitsauce

When I first joined our local CSG (community supported garden), about 10 years ago, we received a little fruit, but certainly not an abundance.

There was a pint or so of stawberries and one of raspberries in the spring, and hearty kiwi if you were lucky, in the autumn.

This has been changing gradually.

The past year or 2 we've been seeing some peaches, some asian apples, and some paw-paw.

This year we also received pears and apples.

There is not an abundance of fruit per distribution for sure, and the autumn fruit is like what I was used to seeing from the "orchard" in my home yard as a child...smallish and quite blemished.

Certainly not apples/pears my kids would want to find in their lunchboxes.

So, being that we're a family that eats a largish amount of bottled applesauce with dinner all year long...thanks to my hubby's passing his love of it on to the kids....I decided to take my distribution and do something the whole family would enjoy.

A few weeks ago (I know..should have posted it then) I made my first batch of applesauce.

I cut the fruit and left all the skin/seeds intact and cooked it all. I added a small amount of sugar and spices (cinnamon, allspice, ginger) and then put it through a food mill at the end.

I got 3 pints out of that batch. 2 are gone, one is frozen.

So, when we received some more fruit, I decided to do it again. Now, this distribution had pears and paw-paws as well as apples and Asian apples, and I decided to make the sauce with it all.

In the picture above, the asian apples and pears are hard to distinguish from each other, and the paw-paws are in the lower portion of the picture.

Since things were busy over the weekend and I didn't get to do it then, I decided to make the applesauce via the crockpot method...overnight in the crockpot...and since I'd be dealing with the finished product in the morning as I was trying to get ready for work, I didn't want to have to put it through the food mill. So I peeled/cored/and seeded this time.

I added a tiny bit of water to the crockpot, but probably didn't have to.

Again I added a small amout of sugar (1/4 cup) and some spices to the pot. And in the morning we woke to a delicious apple aroma. I mashed it up with a fork, so it's chunky instead of smooth, and put it in a container. This batch made 2 pints and is even more delicious than the first.

So there you have it...two methods and two very delicious apple sauces ( I suppose you could also call the second one a chutney).