So, this week I was sort of away from home. By ‘sort of’ I meant I’m home everyday, but just never spent anything more than some odd 2-3 hours in it. My friend Steph is away in India on her yoga training, and her husband was away for coaching a ski trip for the week. They have these two cats whom I love, and they are such house cats who don’t do very well if they are alone for too long. So, cat-sitter Tari hat on, it is.
Here’s the situation. I’ve cat-sit many times before for other friends, but these situation always removed me completely from my home for an extended period of times. This time it is a little different. Steph lives close by. It is about 5 minutes bicycle ride from my house to hers. The other thing is, my own apartment is located right smack in the middle between her home and my office. With this in mind, I simply do not see any reason to pack any suitcase for staying the 9 days. I’ll just shower and pick up my work stuff everyday. Easy peasy. The same treatment is also applied to my weekly grocery shopping. Just buy the usual stuff and pick as I go.
That’s the plan. I thought I was pretty much following it until yesterday when I opened my fridge and tried to figure out what sort of food stuff I should carry to cook at Steph’s when I saw this pitiful bag of very extremely ripe bananas. Poor planning on my part. I normally have bananas for breakfast, but in the midst of juggling two houses – bananas had been forgotten and unnoticed. What to do, what to do… What can I do to 3-4 ripe bananas in one go? The answer is… Banana Bread! I’ve been working on a banana bread recipe for some time now, and thought that I could try some final tweak and was very pleased with the final product.
It is a cold Sunday morning. I am sitting down with a cup of hot coffee and savoring the moist and decadent banana bread.
Banana+Cranberry Bread
Ingredients
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
3 medium sized bananas, mashed
1 cup wholewheat flour
1/4 cup almond milk (can be replaced with low fat milk or soy milk or cranberry juice)
1/2 cup dried cranberry (can use fresh, but I didn’t have any on hand)
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
*Optional: 1 tsp of powder sugar (to dust)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 180C
- Using a standmixer (or handmixer works too), on low (KitchenAid 2, if using) cream oil and sugar together until light and fluffy
- Add egg and mashed bananas, mix further
- Add wholewheat flour, almond milk and cranberry and mix until just combined
- Add plain flour, baking powder and baking soda and mix until just combined. Do not overmix
- Line your loaf pan with some baking paper for the bottom
- Pour the mixture into the loaf pan
- Bake for 60 minutes or until the middle spring back when pressed, or a skewer come back out clean if inserted in the middle
- Let stand for 5 minutes to cool
- Dust with some powder sugar (if using)
- Slice and enjoy while warm
