oh, bananas (treats!)

Major hates bananas. Green, yellow or brown, he takes a sniff and turns away.

I like bananas. But only barely yellow. A little brown = to banana-ey (yes, not a word. A word for me though!)

I throw the too-old bananas in the freezer, to languish until I make banana bread or throw them out. I don’t really want to make banana bread, but there's too much guilt if I throw them away!

So I decided to experiment with a banana horse treat. If Major wouldn’t eat the treat, I know other horses will try it (luckily the ranch has many greedy eaters).

I modified/simplified my other flax treat recipe. (I’m sure you could substitute oats and flour, but I really love what flax does for Major’s feet and fur.)

Easy Banana Treats
3 old bananas (I freeze until I have 3, or more. They get really sweet and squishy when defrosted)
1 cup flax seeds
1.5 cup ground flax (I use a coffee grinder, but you can buy ground flax in the grocery store bins)
2 T salt

Squish bananas until they look like banana snot, lumps are okay. Mix all the ingredients together. Put tablespoons of mixture into a cookie sheet (I’m partial to parchment paper, but whatever works.)

see, I told you, banana snot

mmm, said no one, not appealing! (see what I did there? A-peeling)

making treats the easy way (cookie scoop = best kitchen invention ever)

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, then turn off the oven, leave the treats until cool.

baking cookies (cropped to not show dirty oven!)

don't forget to put into your fancy container

Makes 50 treats. Five cookies = .25 cups flax. (Major recommends a larger serving size, five is not a good round number, 10 is better.)

These were a huge hit! With Major and every other horse. Yeah! Tasty, easy, healthy treats with less banana guilt for me, win-win. So have some brown bananas, flax and a little time this weekend? It's raining here, I'll be making more cookies!

with 30+ years experience, Blazer approved!

give me a cookie and no one gets hurt

P.S. Of course, if you’d rather make banana bread, I have an awesome recipe for that too:

Banana Bread

3 large ripe bananas
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
4 T butter, melted and cooled
1.5 cups all purpose flour
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
1/2 t cinnamon, 1/4 t clove, 1/4 t ginger
3/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 325. Lightly grease a 9 x 5 loaf pan, set aside.

In a bowl mash bananas. Beat in sugar, then egg and butter. In another bowl stir together flour, salt and baking soda, add to banana mixture. Add walnuts (if desired), and stir just until all flour is moistened. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, makes one loaf. Tastes even better the next day!