March: Banana Overload

There's a place near Reed called Limbo where you can by dollar bags of fruits and veggies that are about to go bad. I learned about this just recently when a friend of mine called me up and asked if I had plans that night. I didn't. She said she had about 20 bananas that were about to go bad and asked if I wanted to help her deal with them. Of course I did!

We ended up with:
Banana Daqueris (I've made these before)
Jacked-Up Banana Bread/Cake courtesy of Shutterbean
Banana Blueberry Muffins (I've made these before too but skipped the whole wheat flour and added more butter and less applesauce)

Banana Cake-Bread Awesomeness barely adapted from Shutterbean

-4-6 ripe bananas
-3/4 cup sugar
-2 tablespoons salted butter
-1 large egg, plus 1 egg white
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract
-1 cup flour
-1 teaspoon baking powder
-2-3 teaspoons cinnamon (I always do spices to taste because I get too lazy to measure, so a few shakes of a cinnamon jar should do it)
-1 teaspoon nutmeg (1 shake/pinch)
-1-2 teaspoons ginger (slightly more than the nutmeg)
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-1/2 cup vegetable oil

1. Preheat oven to 325. Move rack to the center. Grease a 9 inch loaf pan.

2. Slice bananas in half lengthwise and cut in half through the middle. Trim to fill the bottom of the loaf pan.

3. In a large pan, bring 1/4 cup sugar and 2 tablespoons of water to a boil, without stirring. You can swirl the pan though. *Note: I doubled this because I love caramel. Cook until the water has evaporated and the mixture starts caramelizing. Remove from the heat and add the butter and whisk until melted.

4. Add the long banana pieces cut side down and cook over low heat for 1 minute. Transfer the slices cut side down to the prepared loaf pan, arranging them crosswise. Drizzle the remaining caramel on top. This is where more is good.

5. In a food processor, puree the rest of the bananas to equal 1 cup (add more banana if necessary--I did). Transfer to a bowl and all the remaining 1/2 cup sugar. Beat in the egg and the egg white as well as the vanilla.

6. In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, spices, and salt. Add the banana mixture and oil and stir until well combined. Pour the batter over the bananas in the pan and bake until a toothpick inserted comes out dry, 50 to 55 minutes. Try to let cool for 10 minutes, and carefully invert the cake onto a platter. I couldn't wait to let it cool completely so I ate it while it was still hot. I recommend this way. It keeps in the fridge, covered, for a few days...if you can resist eating it for that long. I couldn't. It's also good chilled

Banana-Blueberry Breakfast Bread!

Hello!

I have been slacking off like ca-raayy-zzayyy as my neighbor says and must catch up! I got a lovely loaf pan for Christmas, along with some other fabulous cooking items, and finally figured out what to make with it tonight!

Since I now have a sweet volunteer job (I help out at an awesome nonprofit called Playworks and get to do cool writing projects) that starts at a decent hour (9 or 9:30 am) and goes until lunchtime, I need something more substantial, but still easy, for breakfast. Cereal is great, don't get me wrong, but it's nice to have something more exciting to start off the day. Additionally, while I do love my fried eggs on toast, I don't always have time to do that (in other words, I like to sleep in as long as I can). I've been meaning to make some sort of healthy blueberry muffin, but I haven't gotten around to it yet, and in one of my more recent goals to eat everything I have before buying more, I investigated my fridge and freezer.

Well, more to be fair, my dad also suggested banana bread. I then realized I'd frozen really ripe bananas a few months ago (with the hopes of making banana dumplings that I haven't made yet...woops) and also found blueberries. Now combine this with my burning need to use my new presents and hello, you have banana-blueberry bread! I got the idea of adding blueberries both from the fact that I had them on hand, as well as with the idea of substituting them for chocolate chips to be more breakfast-y.

So here you have it: banana bread as adapted from the one on Smitten Kitchen:
-3-4 ripe bananas, mashed
-1/4 c-butter, melted
-3/4 c (or a little less) brown sugar
-1 egg
-1 tsp (or a little less...I eyeballed it) vanilla
-1 large tablespoon bourbon (yummm)
-1 tsp baking soda
-large pinch of salt (or since I have a salt grinder--yayyy Costco!, a few grinds of salt)
-a few grinds/large pinch of black pepper
-1 large tsp cinnamon + more for drizzling on top at the end if you feel so inclined
-1/2 tsp (or a few shakes since I was getting lazy) nutmeg
-1 pinch ground cloves
-1 c flour
-1/2 c dry/uncooked oatmeal
-maybe 1/2 c frozen blueberries-->I just shook them in at the end and put in the amount I wanted...

*PREHEAT OVEN TO 350 DEGREES*
1. Smash up bananas (or thaw frozen ones in the microwave and then smash) with the melted butter in a big bowl with a wooden spoon
2. Add the sugar, egg, vanilla, and bourbon to the above mixture and stir together
3. Add spices
4. Sprinkle salt and baking soda on top and mix (or do this all with the spices like I did...it tasted just fine)
5. Add the oatmeal and flour and mix
6. Add blueberries to taste
7 . Pour/scrape it into a buttered loaf pan (at least 4x8...mine is bigger and that's just fine)
8. Bake for about 45 min or until a tester comes out clean (also my oven runs hot)
9. Cool on a plate or a rack if you're cool enough to have one (I, alas, do not)

*I realize that this is not the healthiest thing ever considering the butter and sugar, HOWEVER, if I had not forgotten to get applesauce at the store, I would have switched out more of the butter for that and maybe more sugar...

**Also: this reheats best in the oven...if you use the microwave or if you just eat it cold, it gets soggy fairly quickly (probably due to the amount of fruit in it...)