Quick cocoa cookies or portable breakfast food (GF)

(Warning: These cookies are gluten-free only if your oats are gluten-free. Oats don't have gluten but the places where they are processed might be used too for processing wheat and then your oats could have gluten. I am highly wheat-sensitive (and maybe gluten-sensitive) but I can eat all the oats I've tried, as long as it's in moderation. Oats themselves are known to be inflammatory, so they can cause problems  in some individuals regardless of their contamination level.)

Recipe.

This recipe has no added sugar, just what's naturally in the unsweetened applesauce and banana. It doesn't need more. The fat comes from the cocoa and nut butter. The protein comes from the oats and nut butter. Minerals come from good salt. Every ingredient adds something healthy. You could have these for breakfast with a hot beverage and consider it a good meal.

Vigorously mix together the following:

3 ripe bananas, smooshed with a fork
2 cups regular (non-instant, non-quick) rolled oat
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup nut butter (almond, peanut butter, any nut butter)
pinch of good salt (coarse salt is fun - it doesn't all blend in, so you might get some in any given bite)

You can do the mixing in a mixer or food processor. Hand-mixing also works.

Let the mixture sit for 20-30 minutes before baking.

Drop by tablespoonfuls on parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Space closely: they don't spread. Flatten them a little for faster cooking and check after 10 minutes.

Bake at 350 degrees in a preheated oven for about 15 minutes. You want them cooked through but not dried out.

Let them cool. Can refrigerate or freeze.

Additions: Chocolate chips, nuts, bits of fruit.

Simple Summer Smoothie

In the pursuit of unsugared satisfying foods, I have taken to making smoothies again. This one is so easy that it will be ready 5 minutes from now, if you happen to have the few ingredients on hand.

Ingredients:
half a quart container of plain yogurt - I use whole milk organic yogurt
3 ripe peaches
1 frozen banana - if you don't have one frozen right now, use a fresh one

Holding the peaches over the blender as you cut them so you don't lose any juice, remove the seed but leave the skin on. Drop them into the blender with the broken-up banana and yogurt. Whirl on high for as long as it takes to eliminate most of the lumps.

Hints: I use my Vita-Mix so the blending takes less than a minute. To freeze bananas, peel them, break them into chunks with your fingers, and freeze in a pie pan or other flat container where they can spread out a single layer deep. Then once they are frozen, bag them and store them in the freezer till it's time for your next smoothie.