We have Banana Bread!

Sometimes plans around here don't fall into place; especially in the kitchen. I saved and shared a link to a Brown Sugar Banana Bread the other day through Google Reader - I have sad bananas in the 'fridge, I can make this! Wait until I have some time on Tuesday, it'll be great!

So I sat down and better inspected the recipe Tuesday morning (ahem, er, afternoon - hey what else are days off for??) and realized I didn't have a few of the ingredients listed, or had substitutions on hand... so off I went to find a better idea for the scary bananas that were dangerously close to being sent to the dumpster. They were getting ugh-lee. And, no you can't peel and freeze them - er well you kinda can, but you need to plan better, as the last time I made a container of banana mush, froze it, I forgot about it after putting it back into the 'fridge, and well, it got nasty.

First and final stop by to smitten kitchen, where I knew I had found a great recipe for apple muffins previously. I found her jacked-up banana bread as the first search result, and I had all the ingredients! Well, in theory anyway, things around our house always have some minor alterations when it comes to baking. Like old bananas that look terrible but turn out to still be hard because you didn't know you weren't supposed to store them in the fridge. Pfft, I like cold partially green bananas, so it seemed like a great idea. If you haven't experienced this before, the peels turn a nasty brown color long before the inside turns to mush under refrigeration.

Then there was the rest of the kitchen adventure; since this is a new blog you'll have to know that no matter what project I take on in the kitchen, it turned into an adventure - if I had a cooking show it would be called OH S*^# - in the kitchen because no matter the project, I say that at least once. Today was giving myself an impromptu manicure with a new knife (GINSU!) that I love, but keep trimming my nails. No there were no escaped parts that will be crunchy bites, eew. The other event was the minor spilling of the last ingredient on the counter, floor, and myself in a small amount - flour.

One-Bowl Banana & Apple Bread
(adapted from Smitten Kitchen's jacked-up banana bread)

3 to 4 ripe bananas, peeled and smashed
1 to 2 small apples, peeled, cored, and chopped in size to your liking (I like teeny, but that's me)
1/3 cup melted salted margarine/butter (I added a pinch of salt, mine was Fleishman's unsalted margarine so my bread would be lactose-free)
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg, beaten (I didn't pre-beat my egg, which made this a one-bowl mess)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 cup of flour

• Preheat the oven to 350°F.
• With a wooden spoon - or hand mixer in case your bananas aren't ready to be wooden spoon mixed - mix melted butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl.
• Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla - then the spices.
• Sprinkle the baking soda over the mixture and mix in.
• Add the flour, and mix!
• Pour mixture into a buttered (or sprayed, I found baking oil spray with flour worked great) 4×8 inch loaf pan - your call on material, I used one of those silicon ones because that's what we've got!
• Bake for 50 minutes to one hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Cool on a rack or on top of the stove and marvel at how great the kitchen smells.
• Remove from pan and slice to serve. Or stand over the stove and enjoy while still warm, dropping half a slice onto the counter - good thing you just cleaned it from spilling flour.

This also has potential for some great muffins too! I just happened to be too lazy to partition the batter into lined muffin tins today. I'd bake 'em for 25 minutes at the same temperature, and keep checking with the clean-poke-to-the-interior-with-a-sharp-object test. Ohh another great option? Sprinkle the top with extra brown or raw sugar for a little crunch on the crust before baking.

(Oops, this sat lonely in my LiveWriter since June, argg!)