PB&J Banana Cookies

I was scheduled to work last night, but spent the first part of the evening "temporarily on-call." In other words, the Medical Surgical floor where I work was quiet the beginning of evening shift change, but was nonetheless poised to anticipate a flood of new patients from the E.R., and when they arrived I was to be duly notified to fly to work. Thus, as I waited in anticipation, dressed and ready in scrubs and watching the phone with all the diligence of a teenager the day after a first date, this unexpected surprise also left me just enough time in the early evening to whip up the new cookie recipe my wonderful friend and honorary blogger Kathleen developed... PB&J Cookies.

PB&J Cookies? You can imagine just how excited I was when Kathleen described the recipe to me over the phone...

I wound up adding a mashed banana to the dough at the last minute, as we had a very ripe banana on hand that needed to be baked into something immediately (as I stirred in the creamy banana, I thought fondly of my Grandmother, who raised me with all the economic diligence she could muster, teaching me to cherish the leftover scraps of biscuit dough, such that I now feel even the last 3/4 cup of leftover coffee in the coffeepot mustn't go to waste, but instead should be blended with some chocolate soymilk, popped into the freezer, and saved as an iced mocha!)

For me, these cookies embody the best parts of being an adult - when you were a child, and your mother said "you're having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch," you were naturally expected to say "OK Mom," even if you were much more in the mood for, say, a bowl of soup or yogurt with granola. Now, though, as an adult, one can simply, breezily reply to the 'mom voice' in one's head, "Nope, as much as I love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I think I'm going to bake peanut butter and jelly cookies instead..."

And while I might not be able to advocate cookies as one's sole lunch ingredient on a regular basis, you could well bake these delightful vegan cookies to go along with lunch quite frequently with nary a twinge of nutrition guilt, for they're healthfully emboldened with whole wheat flour, and they wave aside butter or oil in favor of applesauce and peanut butter...

These cookies are also the perfect way to announce that this afternoon... Drum-roll please... I will be driving to the airport to pick up Kathleen!! We've already planned a glorious week of Italian-Jewish-Southern fusion cooking... Stay tuned! :-)

PB&J Banana Cookies

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

1/2 cup raw turbinado sugar

1 ripe banana, mashed

1/4 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup applesauce

1/4 cup all-fruit (no added sweeteners) strawberry jam

1 tsp vanilla

~ Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray.

~ In a large bowl, gently stir together the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt, and turbinado sugar.

~ In a separate bowl, beat together the mashed banana, peanut butter, applesauce, strawberry jam, and vanilla, until creamy.

~ Stir the wet ingredients into the dry until just combined.

~ Scoop the dough by rounded tablespoons onto the baking sheet, and bake for approx. 16 minutes - until the cookies are just set and just beginning to turn golden around the edges.

~ Immediately transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool... or serve them warm... :-)