Banana-Zucchini Bread

    

     Today, I decided to do the laundry. I decided to wash all my sheets and all my towels. I decided to reorganize my closet. I have piled up all the dishes, and I will do them All. Because my parents are visiting. Not just my parents, but my parents and my little brother. (My little sister having decided to go to school on the West Coast she cannot join the reunion, but I will see her soon so all is well.)

     Struggling to get my comforter back into its newly washed duvet cover a little while ago, I felt a strange kind of vertigo. My family is visiting so I'm cleaning my apartment. Wasn't it just yesterday that I was sitting on the couch folding the laundry with my mom? That I was complaining about the sandwiches she'd made me to take to school? That I could come home and there would be fresh baked bread stored, as always, in the slow cooker? Yes, I get it back for a little while over vacation. But is this, this living in an apartment and making my own meals and folding my own little store of laundry, is this real life now?

     If it is, its a good thing my parents are visiting. I want to be pampered for a little while. I don't want to cook my own meals. I want to be driven around in the car, in the back seat with my little brother. One of my very wise friends the other day commented on our lives at college, how we are constantly running around. No two hours are spent in the same place between different classes and meetings and studying. Its true, and now I need a respite, a little haven. And that is what parents are for, right?

     Just like this bread. I know I gravitate towards banana bread and zucchini bread, so it seems inevitable that a banana-zucchini bread is making its way onto my page. But, when one has half a zucchini in the fridge and wants comforting food, this does seem the way to go. This bread is dense and moist, full of banana flavor and the heartwarming knowledge that one is eating a vegetable. But most importantly, with its cinnamon and nutmeg goodness, this bread made my apartment smell like home. A home my parents and brother can come visit and fill full of home-like memories.

Banana Zucchini Bread
Adapted from Joy the Baker

2 large Ripe Bananas
3/4 cup Granulated Sugar
1/4 cup Vegetable Oil
2 tsp Vanilla
1/4 cup Milk (or use Soy Milk to stay vegan)
2 cups All-Purpose Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/8 tsp Nutmeg
1 cup Shredded Zucchini

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8 by 4 (or 9 by 5) loaf pan.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt, and set aside. Next, in a separate mixing bowl, thoroughly mash your bananas. To your bananas, add the sugar, oil, vanilla extract, and milk. Whisk everything together until incorporated. Using a wooden spoon, mix these wet ingredients into your dry ones until just combined. Fold in your shredded zucchini, and scrape the batter into the loaf pan. Bake for 45-50 minutes, testing with a toothpick to make sure it comes out clean and the bread is ready. Once it is done, take it out on the oven and cool it on a wire rack for ten minutes in the pan. Then, upturn the cake onto the pan, and leave it to cool completely - or slice and eat right away.

Finals

     It is Final Time. Perhaps you have guessed from the fact that I haven't been around. Or maybe you live in a college town or are in college and can feel the stress waves emanating through the air around you. Finals Finals Finals they say....Shut up Shut up Go Away, you reply. Or at least, that's how I would reply. If I could talk.

     One of those charming quirks of my personality is that I always get sick for exams. I'm sure my mom, for one, would throw me a party if I got through a single finals/midterm season without running a fever and hacking up my lungs the entire time. No party this time. And somehow, with my own special skills, I managed to contract an illness that has forced me to eat solely....Ensure. Which is not a food. It is a nutrition drink. And that along with mashed potatoes and mashed sweet potatoes and mashed bananas....is not a fulfilling finals diet. Can you blame me for being missing? You didn't want to hear about various ways to make mashed bananas interesting, did you?

 

 

      But, today I feel a little better. Or at least, I am better enough to want something that is Not Mush...that is in fact...baked....perhaps...banana bread? Of course, the issue with things like baking during finals time is that I am very strapped for ingredients. Who needs grocery shopping when there are things like organic chemistry exams to study for! So, no milk, no eggs, three vaguely ripe bananas....It's a good thing banana bread is pretty impossible to mess up, or this poor thing would never have made it into the oven.

     Because you see, the lack of milk or any other liquid meant that originally my batter was....lumps. Not a batter at all, simply sad lumps of flour trying to mix in with oil and sugar and all that jazz. But would you give up when trying to make your first solid food in a week? Of course not! And neither did I. I didn't have milk. I couldn't use water. Orange juice? No... And then it came to me.....tis the season for: HOT CHOCOLATE! Ya, Capitals. I was that excited. So, I made a cup of hot chocolate and into the batter it went. The result? Must you ask? Not too sweet, super moist, chocolatey, banana-y, with a touch of cinnamon I-have-already-eaten-too-much deliciousness...you are on your way to make this now right?

Hot Chocolate Banana Bread

1 1/2 cups All-purpose Flour
1/2 cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/8 tsp Nutmeg 
1/3 cup Vegetable Oil 
1 cup Light Brown Sugar (or regular sugar, it will just be a tad sweeter)
2 tsp Vanilla 
3 Medium Sized Ripe Bananas, Mashed 
1 cup Hot Chocolate (i.e. 2 tbsp Hot Chocolate Mix stirred into 8 oz hot water)

Pre-heat your oven to 325 degrees and butter a loaf pan.

In one medium large bowl, whisk together your flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. In another larger bowl, stir together your vegetable oil, sugar, and vanilla. Mix your dry ingredients into your wet, and stir in the mashed bananas. Last of all, add your hot chocolate (make sure its stirred well! No lumps at the bottom) and mix it in thoroughly - so you have a nice smooth batter. Pour into your loaf pan, and bake for 55 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick (or plastic knife) comes out clean when you stick it in the middle. Let cool on a wire rack in the loaf pan for 10 minutes, then run a toothpick (or plastic knife) around the edges, upturn onto a plate, and enjoy! Or you know, wait for it to cool completely...then enjoy.

Study space...that is why the sticky notes are around, by the way.

Long Overdue

     

     I completely forgot about this banana bread. How could I forget banana bread? It is so comfy and homey, but it just totally slipped my mind. I think its this summery weather. Banana bread is a throwback to those chilly breezes of a week ago, now all is hot. Unfortunately, today it is hot and humid. I was supposed to leave work an hour ago, but I'm just sitting here chilling while the rain thunders on outside. Go rain go, I am safe inside.

     What do I have to say about this banana bread? I wish I still had some. I am starving...ahhh so hungry! I would totally venture outside to go food hunting, if I didn't have this precious laptop with me. Silly laptop, why are you so fragile? The poor thing is already cracked around the edges because I have dropped it so many times, I would not want to get it wet. I am also obviously not focusing. What was I talking about again? Oh right. Banana bread. That I finished. Which also finished a lot of my baking supplies:

     I suppose it is to be expected that after you make three layers of a cake and a banana bread, you will not have any flour or butter left. The butter is a sad thing though, it is very hard to eat bread without butter. So, what was the alternative? 

Packaging Care

     I have this most amazing friend CV. But, whenever I talk to him, he is stressed and in the library and swamped with work. It makes me want to give him a hug, except that he goes to school in Canada, which is a long way for even a telepathic hug to travel. So, instead, I send him food. Last semester, I sent him off some banana bread and cookies. This semester, I thought I would do the same. Loaf cakes and cookies are foods that travel very well. But, one mustn't be repetitive. What new kind of well-travel-able cake can I make? The answer came to me in my usual obsessive perusing of different food blogs. Joy the Baker had posted the perfect recipe: Peanut Butter Banana Bread.

     On being polled, my friend agreed that Peanut Butter Banana Bread was indeed what he wanted. And so, I bought peanut butter and bananas today. It was the kind of day where I had work and class and then an hour and then work, and now I'm here. It was the kind of day where I went grocery shopping for peanut butter and bananas right before my work at night, realized I didn't have enough time to return home, and brought my peanut butter and bananas to work. Needless to say, I had a peanut butter and banana snack (read: a lot of peanut butter with a banana) while working. There are perks to being a food blogger and buying small streams of groceries. And, I love peanut butter.

     Banana bread is really just an amazing food. You can add chocolate (I had to), you can add peanut butter (Joy the Baker or whoever first thought of it is a genius), berries...I'm sure you could add almost anything to banana bread and it would come out delicious. You can also subtract, if you don't have brown sugar, or yogurt, or flax meal for example - Joy's recipe called for it, I simply looked the other way and substituted when I could. Whole milk for yogurt was an easy substitution to make. I still have to use up that gallon of whole milk, sigh.

"Taste testing" the banana bread

     Banana bread is also ridiculously easy. Its a one or two bowl, one or two spoons operation at the most. And it comes out so moist, and homey, and fragrant, and delicious every time. This banana bread was no different. While warm, it was soft, with melty chocolate, and hints of cinnamon and spice, and then that almost salty peanut buttery taste flowing through it all. It was delicious. My friend PN who taste tested it with me does not like the butt of a cake, so she got a middle piece which she says was very soft and fluffy. I ate the butt, and it was crunchy and delicious. Just right for a midnight snack.

Peanut Butter Banana Bread 
Adapted from Joy the Baker Adapted from Cooking Light 

1 Loaf Pan

1 1/2 cup All-Purpose Flour

3/4 tsp Baking Soda 

1/2 tsp Salt 

1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon

1/8 tsp Allspice 
3 Ripe Bananas, Mashed (if they are not so so ripe: microwave them for a little and then mash them)
1/4 cup Milk  
1/3 cup Peanut Butter (I used Extra Crunchy to get peanut bits, Joy used Creamy. Go wild) 
3 tbsp Butter, Melted
2 large Eggs 
1 cup Sugar 
1/4 cup Chocolate Chips (I had a Hershey's bar so I crumbled it up and used that...Ya) 

Place a rack in the center of the oven and pre-heat to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9 by 5 in loaf pan and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, ground cinnamon, and ground allspice together. In a medium bowl, whisk the mashed bananas, milk, peanut butter, and melted butter together. Then, whisk in the eggs and sugar. Mix until there are no sugar lumps. Next, pour this wet mixture into the large bowl with the dry ingredients. Fold everything together with a wooden spoon until well mixed. Then, add the chocolate chips. Pour batter into the loaf pan and bake the cake for 55 to 65 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Remove the pan from the oven when done. On a wire rack, cool the bread in the pan for ten minutes. Then, run a knife along the edges of the pan, and invert the bread onto a wire rack to cool completely.