i thought, this will either be really good, or really awful.

and it turned out pretty darn good. we (okay, i) often have two breakfasts at my house on at least one weekend day. cold cereal and coffee when i get up, because i get up earlier than brian, and then usually something yummy a bit later after he summons the will to live and comes downstairs to steal the paper from me. this weekend we had some extra bananas lying around that were starting to turn brown so of course i thought, banana bread! i was quite surprised that none of my recipes for banana bread had any kind of spices in them. and then i discovered that i didn't have any walnuts. what?! banana bread with no walnuts? sacrilege. so i improvised and souped up my recipe.


while looking for walnuts i discovered some crystallized ginger. i love crystallized ginger. i also added slivered almonds instead of the walnuts because that's what was in the pantry. it came out very good albeit a bit gingery. i think in the future i would go a little lighter on the ginger (i put in about 1/3 cup) and put in another banana (i used 1 cup mashed). and of course, a little bit of spice never hurt anyone.

i also squeezed some fresh orange juice from some oranges we had sitting around that needed to be dealt with. i don't really like eating oranges but i love orange juice. how come fresh-squeezed tastes so much better than from a carton? these were not even from a tree, just from the store. if anyone has a surplus of oranges that they would like to share, a good home for them can be found in my kitchen.

happy easter, everyone!

spiced banana bread (the way i would make it, not the actual way i did it)

¼ c. softened butter
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1¼ c. mashed bananas (about 4)
½ c. milk
2 T. orange or lemon zest
2¼ c. flour
¼ c. whole wheat flour
3 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
¼ c. chopped crystallized ginger
½ c. slivered almonds
¼ tsp. nutmeg
¼ tsp. cinnamon

preheat oven to 350º. cream together butter, sugar, and egg. add mashed bananas, milk, and zest and mix well. add flours, baking powder, salt, ginger, almonds, and spices and mix well. pour into a greased 9x5x3 loaf pan and bake for one hour or until done. cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool.