The best plan is to retrain your sweet tooth by eliminating all sweets.  Then you can enjoy the flavor and sweetness of fruit as a dessert.  (It really DOES work that way!)  However, sometimes you have to make cookies.  When it’s your turn to make cookies for a church or school event, it’s good to have some healthy recipes up your sleeve.  Here’s a slimmed-down version of Chunky Monkey cookies.  This isn’t one I revised.  I found it on Pinterest with Jimmie @ Onceamonthmom.com listed as the source. (The picture is from her site, too.) A check of the Internet showed lots of Skinny Monkeys, so I’m not sure where it originated.

Skinny Monkey Cookies

3 bananas

2 cups old-fashioned oats

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter or other nut butter

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Dash of cinnamon (optional)

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mash bananas in a large bowl and then stir in the remaining ingredients.  Let the batter stand for about 20 minutes, then drop by teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Sprinkle with cinnamon, if desired.  Bake for 10 – 12 minutes.

Notice that there is no sugar in this recipe, except for what occurs in the ingredients.  It’s important to read the labels, though.  The first four jars of applesauce I picked up listed high fructose corn syrup as the first or second ingredient.  It should have just apples and water on the ingredient list.  Some nut butters have added sugar, too.  Also keep in mind that the ripeness of the bananas will affect the sweetness.

Another site suggested shaking the cookies in a bag with cinnamon and sugar to jazz them up a bit.

If you pick the low/no sugar versions of the peanut butter and applesauce, every ingredient is low or moderate on the glycemic index.  They have about 47 calories per cookie, so two cookies make an acceptable snack for your plan.  And I made them successfully, which classifies the recipe as fool-proof!

Eating to live and living for Christ,

Susan Jordan Brown