Air-Fryer Banana Bread Cookies

Two bananas you forgot about, turning black on the counter. A half-eaten bag of rolled oats from when you were going to make granola in January and didn't. Some chocolate chips that have started to bloom white at the edges of the bag. This is a recipe in the strict sense — it has ingredients and instructions and a temperature — but it's really just a permission slip to clear your pantry without feeling like you've thrown food away.

The cookie itself is the texture of a soft granola bar that fell into a hot pan: dense, slightly cakey, oat-flecked, with little molten chocolate spots from the chips. It's not crunchy. It's not supposed to be. You eat it warm from the air fryer, ideally standing up, with a cup of coffee that's slightly too hot. There's enough banana that you don't need to add sugar; there's enough peanut butter that you don't need to add fat. There's just enough chocolate that you don't accidentally feel virtuous.

You can make these in a sheet-pan version in the oven — same recipe, 350°F for 12 minutes — but the air fryer is faster, and the dry heat gives the edges a slightly chewier crust. They're the size of a large muffin top, four to a batch. They don't last long.