Bueno Banana Bread

This banana bread is delicious! I set out to find a recipe that uses applesauce as a substitute for all or some of the oil and I ended up finding the aforementioned recipe on cooks.com. I doubled the recipe because I can't imagine only having one loaf of bread to show as the fruits of my labor. We are also having friends over for the Super Bowl tomorrow and I thought it would be nice to knock out one of my hour d' oeuvres today instead of waiting to make all of them tomorrow.

The only change I made to the recipe other than doubling, was to substitute 1/4 cup of the oil for applesauce to cut some of the fat out. I have made zucchini and pumpkin bread with applesauce previously so I knew it would turn out just lovely. This end result however, was even better than anticipated. Brad just took a bite and said that it may be the best banana bread he has ever eaten. Not bad for my first time, eh? (That was an ode to my Canadian friend, Pamela). :)

For your viewing or cooking pleasure:

BANANA BREAD

2 eggs
1/2 c. vegetable oil
3/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 c. blueberry yogurt or applesauce
1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 c. chopped nuts
2 lg. ripe bananas, mashed

Mix eggs, oil, sugar, vanilla and yogurt with spoon. Then stir in dry ingredients. Add bananas and chopped nuts. Stir until well mixed. Bake in loaf pan at 375 degrees until done (50-60 minutes).

On a side note, the nuts I chose to use were a mixture of pecans and walnuts. Now, regarding the Black Bean and Corn Salad, I added the missing cilantro, tasted it and realized that it needed a bit of something else to balance it out. I have made my mother-in-law's delicious black eyed pea, corn and avocado salad in the past and it requires a touch of balsamic. Since I know balsamic works well in the black eyed pea salad, I decided to add it to my black bean and corn salad. Voila! It worked beautifully. Brad and Olivia gave it the seal of approval so I will consider it a success. On to next week!