Gluten Free Almost Healthy Oatmeal Cookies Recipe

Day 39:
I am so excited!  I love when I throw together ingredients hoping for the best and they turn out fabulous! 

These are some of the best cookies I have ever had.  And are you ready for this?  The only unhealthy ingredients in them are the chocolate chips and peanut butter chips.  Besides the chips there is no added sugar, no hydrogenated oil, no dairy, no egg!  

I have to confess, I've already eaten three and I don't think I'm going to be able to stop there.  Oats, almond flour, flax seed, bananas, chocolate and peanut butter chips all come together to form a cookie that is moist and tender on the inside with a cookie texture on the outside. 

The other day when I was making the baked oatmeal I initially started with oats, chocolate chips, and peanut butter chips.  Before I put in the wet ingredients though I decided I wanted my baked oatmeal to have fruit instead.  So this mixture of oats, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and baking powder have been sitting on my counter for a few days just dying to be used in some fashion.  I've been agonizing over it and laid awake for a long time last night thinking about it.  These are what I came up with.  I'm not sure the baking powder is really necessary but it was already in my mix so I'll list it here in my recipe but I think it can be skipped.  

 The Ingredients (see note below):

• 1 cup GF old fashioned oats (the quick cooking kind would probably work too)
• 1/4 cup almond flour
• 2 tbsp ground flax seed
• 1/3 cup each semi-sweet chocolate chips and peanut butter chips
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 very ripe bananas, mashed
• 3 tbsp grapeseed oil (olive or coconut oil will work well too)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

The Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or silpat.
2. In medium bowl mix together oats, almond flour, flax seed, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, salt, and baking powder (as stated above I think the baking powder is unnecessary but I can't be sure so I include it here)
3.  In small bowl whisk together mashed bananas, grapeseed oil, and vanilla.
4. Stir banana mixture into oat mixture.  
5. Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheet.  I scooped some of the "dough" onto a spoon, sort of squished it together and rounded it out a bit with my fingers, then slid it off the spoon onto the cookie sheet.  These won't spread or really change much while baking.
6. Bake 15-20 minutes.  These seemed to brown first on the bottom so be careful not to burn them!  20  minutes was just the teeniest bit too long for mine so I cut it down to 18 minutes for the 2nd batch and that seemed to be perfect.  You'll see the oats beginning to turn very slightly brown on top when they're ready.  
7. Attempt to cool these at least a few minutes on a wire rack before consuming all of them.

Note:  This recipe made 13 cookies so you may want to consider doubling it.

Variations:  I see no reason these couldn't be made totally healthy by subbing out the chocolate & peanut butter chips with raisins and maybe adding a little cinnamon to the dry ingredients. 

Update!  I made these the other day with some alterations and basically turned them into a soft granola bar type cookie that's perfect for breakfast or on the go and even healthier!  I removed the chocolate & peanut butter chips, reduced the vegetable oil down to 2 tablespoons, and added some raisins and a touch of cinnamon.  They came out soft but held together well.  Very much like a soft granola bar and very yummy.