I used to bake.  A lot!!. When the kids were at home I made cookies, bread, buns, cinnamon buns, pies, doughnuts, cakes… A lot. And then the kids moved away. Yes, a couple have returned and I am still cooking for 5 but somehow I got out of the habit of baking except for homemade bread. Until this summer when suddenly the bug hit me again. I made buckets of cookies for standby for company. I made saskatoon pies. It didn’t take long. In fact, I wondered why I had been avoiding it. There is nothing to compare to homemade cookies, pies, cakes, etc.

Today I made banana oatmeal cookies. This is a recipe I discovered when I was job-training a mentally challenged young woman in the hospital kitchen. Each week we made cookies for those in long-term care.

BANANA OATMEAL COOKIES

butter or margarine- 1 1/2 cups

sugar-2 cups

eggs- 2

mashed banana – 2 cups (about 4 bananas)

flour- 3 cups

baking soda- 1 tsp

cinnamon-2 tsp

nutmeg (optional)- 1/4-1/2 tsp.

oats–3 1/2 cups

Mix first 4 ingredients. Add dry ingredients and mix. Drop onto greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees until lightly browned.

HINTS: double the recipe. I always figure if I have the oven on I might as well bake a bunch. If you’re short of time, mix the dough the night before, store in a tightly closed container and bake the next day.

Enjoy.