Banana Blog

You may have noticed that my last two posts came without one of my oh so artistic photographs of food. This is for two reasons (1) after a recent school project I sort of burnt out on food photography (the above photo was included in that) and need a small break to recover my creative mojo and (2) because I haven't really been eating anything lately. Aside from the Indian meal I described in the previous posting (which I don't have a picture of because I never remember to bring my camera to restaurants and sometimes feel as though I will scare the kitchen staff into thinking I'm some sort of inspector if I start snapping photos of my dinner plate) I have eaten little of anything over the past 3 days. But there is one food that I never really have an aversion to even when my insides are rejecting every other edible product imaginable. And that food is the humble banana. Humble, yes, for the banana has many accolades to boast about. It's America's favorite fruit according to banana.com. Apparently American's consume more of the sunny yellow fruit than apples and oranges combined.

Turns out there's a lot about bananas I didn't know. Like the fact that the banana plant is not a tree at all..it's actually the world's largest herb! Crazy, right? And the American love affair with the banana actually began in my home state of Pennsylvania in 1876. Now, I haven't yet found the time to corraborate any of the facts I'm gleaning from the banana.com website but I will do a thorough fact check and edit as necessary, don't you worry.

Until then I'll leave you with my favorite banana bread recipe so that you might prepare for National Banana Bread Day, February 23rd. This recipe comes from VeganMania! (that exclamation point is part of the title not an indicator of how excited I am about the recipe though it's pretty darn tasty):

1/2 cup brown rice syrup

1/2 cup canola oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 "eggs" ( I usually use an extra mashed banana or 1 tablespoon ground flax seed in 3
tablespoons of warm water)

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup oats

1/4 cup cornmeal

1/4 cup wheat germ

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup mashed banana

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine brown rice syrup, oil, and vanilla in large bowl. Beat "egg" with whisk and add to wet ingredients.

In separate bowl, mix together flour, oats, cornmeal, wheat germ, baking soda, and salt. Alternating with mashed banana, add dry ingredients to wet.

Oil and flour loaf pan and fill with batter.

Bake for 45-60 minutes until toothpick inserted in center of loaf comes out clean.

Let cool on wire baking rack before removing from pan and serving.

Go bananas!
Jenna