Oat Bran Breakfast Cookies

I was playing around with a batch of breakfast cookies the other day and came up with a new variety.  Since I've been making a lot of oat bran muffins lately, I decided to incorporate some oat bran into my breakfast cookies.  As long as I was at it, I tossed in some ground flax seed and a bit of oil, just to shake things up a bit.  These breakfast cookies are wheat free, egg free and dairy free.  I found the texture was a lot softer and not quite as chewy as my Banana Oat Breakfast Cookies.  I'm not sure if it was the addition of the oil, flax seed, oat bran or the combo that changed the texture.  Roy really enjoyed them, and gave them a thumbs up.  Hope you like them, too.  :) 

Oat Bran Breakfast Cookies 
makes 16-20, depending on size of cookies
 
Ingredients

• 1 cup quick oatmeal ~ uncooked
• 1/2 cup oat bran
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed with fork until creamy 
  
• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/3 cup raisins and/or dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup carob chips (or chocolate chips)
• 1 Tbsp ground flax seed
• 1 Tbsp oil (I use Smart Balance)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Directions

Preheat heat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix vanilla extract & cinnamon into the applesauce.  Blend applesauce mixture with all other ingredients & let sit for 10 minutes.  Drop cookie dough, by spoonfuls, onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet & flatten cookies into circles.  Bake approx. 22 -25 minutes.  Remove from oven & let rest on cookie sheet for 5 minutes, then move to cooling rack.  Store in a covered container when completely cool, with parchment paper between the layers.  They will last longer if kept in the fridge.