This bread is bananas...B-A-N-A-N-A-S

There really is a Facebook group entitled "Gwen Stefani taught me how to spell B-A-N-A-N-A-S"...

I'm not a member, and that song drives me crazy. And I probably just got it stuck in my head after typing that as the title of this post, HOWEVER, something HAD to be done with the over-ripened bananas hanging out on my counter top. Banana bread was the only reasonable solution.

Simply Recipes is one of my favorite food blogs to frequent...I've cooked many recipes that Elise has posted including chile verde (which I absolutely adore), carnitas, and albondigas soup. This was the first time I tried a baking recipe from Elise, and I made a few minor alterations of my own in the interest of my own personal health goals. What follows is Elise's recipe (that she got from a friend) with my deviations in italics.

Banana Bread

Ingredients:
3-4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 c. melted butter - I used Smart Balance
1 c. sugar (can easily be reduced to 3/4 cup) - I did that
1 t. vanilla
1 t. baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 c. all purpose flour

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered (I sprayed the pan with canola oil) 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

The result:

Hopefully this glorious aroma will linger in my home long enough for the potential buyers coming to see it from 4-5 this afternoon can still smell it!!!!

Taste of Home

So my thought that changing my blog from 101 in 1001 to being about food would make me write more was clearly wrong. Whatever. I'm back.

Thanks to my mother-in-law, I have a subscription to Taste of Home magazine. And thanks to Audrey Kinne from Elkhart, Indiana I had a fabulous recipe to try out for dinner on Sunday night.

(Photo courtesy Taste of Home magazine)

Grilled tomatillo chicken is something Audrey says she invented because her husband's favorite restaurant that served a similar dish was closing. (By the way, don't know if the link will work, b/c according to ToH website, this recipe is marked "subscriber only". But google it and try it out!)

I don't know what that restaurant was or what their version of this dish was like, but hers was AMAZING. Definitely going into the regular rotation.

I have no photos of my journey in making this dish, but they would have been boring anyway because it was so simple and turned out so delicious.

If by any chance you, Audrey Kinne, happen to read my simple little blog, THANKS! My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed it! :)