Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

As a contribution to a dinner party with both vegan and non-vegan guests, we made these easy, crowd-pleasing cookies found here.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup margarine
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1 cup table sugar
• 1 ripe, mashed banana
• 5 tsp vanilla
• 2 tsp vanilla soy milk
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder stirred into the flour
• 2 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 2 1/2 cups chocolate chips (check if there is milkfat in the chips. We ended up using Ghiradelli

Instructions:

Beat together the margarine and sugars. Add the mashed banana and mix well, then add the vanilla, then the soy milk. Keep mixing and add the dry ingredients, in the order above.The final batter should be almost too dry to hold the chocolate chips. As the original post says, "Dry batter is good, since any chips that fall off the batter can go directly into your mouth, and no one will miss them."

Bake them for 10 or 12 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 375F on an ungreased cookie sheet. Let them congeal on the sheet for a moment after removing them from the oven, then cool on a plate or a wire rack.

The banana and large amount vanilla give these cookies a great flavor. And one excellent bonus of vegan cookies is that you can eat as much batter as you like without the dangers of raw egg.