Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Its been a long time since I posted. Since my last post (which was apparently on December 6th) I managed to fly home for Christmas, fly back to California for a week, pack up my life, and drive it half way across the country to Minnesota.

I had a moving company move all my stuff for me. After I'd been in Minnesota for about two and a half weeks, my stuff arrived. As you can imagine, sleeping on an air mattress and sitting on my living room floor to watch TV had gotten old, fast. So, I was VERY excited for my couch to arrive. When the moving man saw the layout of the apartment, he said there was no way they were getting my couch in. I was devastated (and of course didn't believe him - he'd only been moving furniture for 20 years. How could he know?).

So, I had him put the couch in my garage while I figured out a plan. Luckily enough, Kimba was coming to visit two weeks later. Aside from all the cooking and eating we were planning on doing (posts on that to come...soon?), I told Kim to prepare for a couch moving adventure as well. The couch was heavy and bulky and we we looked like ridiculous fools trying to get it in the house, up my narrow stairwell and into the living room. Basically after a half hour of trying different couch manipulations, we gave up (but we DID at least get it into the kitchen!). I sadly posted the couch on craigslist and started my search for a futon - which I found later that week. Despite thinking (knowing?) that I have super woman strength, I was still going to need help getting this futon in my house. So, I solicited the help of two of the guys I worked with. This banana bread was my thank you to them for the help. Unfortunately, the only picture I took of the bread was with my cell phone...

Adapted from allrecipes

Ingredients

• 1 C whole wheat flour
• 1/2 C whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/4 C amaranth flour
• 1 tsp baking soda (I like my boy Bob)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 C butter
• 1/4 unrefined coconut oil (good oil should smell like coconut)
• 1/2 C cane sugar
• scant 1/4 C maple syrup
• 2 beaten eggs
• 2 1/3 C mashed, really really ripe bananas (I think I used ~6 bananas)
• 3/4 C semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)
• 1/2 C chopped walnuts (optional)

Recipe

1. Grease a loaf pan (butter + flour, or my girl Pam). Pre-heat oven to 350 deg F.
2. Combine the dry ingredients (flours, baking soda, salt) in a large bowl.
3. In a medium sized bowl, cream together the wet stuff (butter, coconut oil, sugar, syrup). Add in the eggs and bananas.
4. Mix in the dry ingredients, chocolate chips, and nuts. Combine until just mixed. Pour into the loaf pan.
5. Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes, until a toothpick/knife stuck in the middle comes out clean.

If you're not crazy about using the flours, oils, etc. you can just use 2 C flour, 1/2 C butter, and 3/4 C sugar.

Servings 10-18 servings (depending on slice size, obviously!)