I am the mad baker!  If I were young, I'd take out the crippling loan necessary to attend one of our nation's prestigious culinary institutes and invest in becoming a chef.  Food is art! 

But I'm too old to be a novice in any professional kitchen that wants to make money and/or doesn't want to some old babe bleeding all over their product.  I'm not up to all the ~on your feet ridiculously long hours~, superduper hard work, the heat, lunacy, pressure, drinking + drugs + wanton sex in the workplace, not to mention having to learn foreign languages in order to communicate with the majority of the people I would be working with. 

(I AM Spanish - half.  But I've always been Spanish challenged.  Trying yet again to not mangle other languages while in a pressured professional environment, particularly while others are armed with highly sharpened 10" chef's knives is more than I am willing to risk at my advanced age.)

You don't care about that.  You want my spectacular cookie recipe.  Here it is but please read it through before you start:

*I like canola oil for this recipe.  If you prefer butter, use clarified butter/ghee or a combination of oil and clarified butter.  Due to the brown sugar and bananas, these cookies brown easily and butter increases the likelihood of burning.  So if you use butter, WATCH THEM in the oven!  (I cannot emphasize this enough.)

If you use them, put chopped peanuts on cookie sheet and toast for 15 or so minutes while oven heats up then let cool before adding to batter.

1. Cream oil, peanut butter, Splenda/agave or sugar and bananas until the bananas are liquified (little to no chunks). 

2. Add egg and vanilla until combined completely.

3. Place all dry ingredients (including spices) in a bowl and mix with a fork or whisk until blended.  Add to mixer with paddle on slow until they are combined but not over beaten. 

4. Add oatmeal, choc chips and peanuts quickly either w paddle on slow or with a wooden spoon.  Do not overbeat the batter.  Batter will be looser than usual but not runny.  If you use agave/molasses it will be even looser.  But do not add more flour. 

5. Using a teaspoon or cookie scoop and a silicon spatula, put a scoop on an oiled/silicon/silpat covered or parchment papered cookie sheet and flatten down w the spatula. 

6. Bake 15 - 20 minutes or until brown around the edges.  Remove to rack to cool. 

If you like chewy soft cookies, you're there.  Pour a glass of milk and start eating.

7. (optional step) If you like your cookies crisp and crunchy, when cool put cookies back on cookie sheet and place in a 225 oven (or the oven you shut off that's cooled down but still hot) for 15 - 20 minutes and allow them to slowly darken but not burn.  Remove and let cool completely.  They will be classics - wonderful and perfectly crunchy.

 ENJOY!

Note: This is a recipe I've worked on, a conglomerate of recipes I've gotten from various books and websites (I'm always on the lookout for good cookie recipes).  Then I make them very much mine, adjusting every ingredient for taste, making them sugar free and/or low fat, adding whole wheat and changing this and that.  We have sugar sensitivities in the family, but we love our cookies!