BREAKFAST COOKIES

Sometimes, you're wandering along the road of life, minding your own business, when it suddenly becomes apparent that breakfast cookies are a real, actual, possible-to-create-in-this-particular-universe sort of a thing. And then you make them. And you eat them. And you tinker and bake and eat some more.

These particular breakfast cookies were purportedly inspired by the need to find a way to transmute the grain-and-veggie mixes I had been feeding my increasingly independent one-year-old into something he could hold in his own two hands (spoon feeding is for babies; big kids feed themselves cookies for breakfast).

Of course, secretly, the breakfast cookies are for me.

Did I mention that they taste like a perfect blend of chewy cookie and muffin but have crazy healthy ingredients and just a hint of banana-cinnamon-vanilla sweetness?

Make some and see.

Ingredients
2-3 oz baby spinach
2 ripe or overripe bananas
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup or slightly more creamy 100% peanut or almond butter
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill 10 grain breakfast cereal*
1/2 cup cooked quinoa*
1/2 apple, peeled and diced**

Preheat oven to 350°.

Toss the spinach, bananas, cinnamon, vanilla, and peanut butter in a food processor and blend until smooth. Spoon out into a mixing bowl and add the grains and apple. Mix well to combine.

Spoon the dough onto a nonstick cookie sheet and pat to form cookies. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown on the bottom.

Makes about 12 cookies.

*you can sub rolled oats (quick cook or regular) for either or both of these, or a different cooked grain like farro...just use whatever you have on hand. I liked this combination for the texture and protein.
**I like my cookies not too sweet. But if you like them on the sweeter side, consider subbing raisins or chocolate chips for the apple, and use bananas that are overripe.

Maui, Day 6: Fried Red Bananas and a Rainbow of Beaches

What do you do when you're trapped in Hana and you've run out of fish and wild boar?

Improvise.

These are decadent. Serve over jungle rice with some diced avocado tossed with lime and cilantro as a counterpoint to the sweetness. Pairs incredibly well with either Maui Brewing Company's Coconut Porter (available, if you happen to be trapped in Hana too, at the Hasegawa General Store) or a sweeter Torrontés like the 2012 from Terraza de los Andes (available, if you happen to be passing it, at the Costco in Kahului).

Ingredients

1 tbsp butter

Olive oil

2 red bananas that aren't quite ripe (or sub yellow bananas when still slightly green)

1 tsp finely chopped lemongrass

1 tsp minced or finely julienned ginger

1 tbsp toasted grated coconut or crumbled coconut chips

Heat a wide pan over medium-high heat. Add the butter and melt, then supplement with a drizzle of olive oil if needed to have a thin layer of fat along the bottom of the pan. Add the bananas in a single layer. Sprinkle with the lemongrass and ginger, then fry until golden brown.

Flip the bananas, sprinkle with the coconut, and fry until browned on both sides. Serve hot.

Serves 2-3.

Cuban red bananas from the local roadside fruit stand

Hike down to the red sand beach for a morning swim

Red and black lava cinders lining the trail

Sunset from the black sand beach at Wai'anapapa