Banana Bread and Clean Freezers

I have this really annoying habit.

I got it from my mother, it's stuck with me, and I'll probably pass it on to my daughter.

My husband absolutely can't stand it.  I just can't help myself, though.

What is this horrible offense?

Well...I just can't throw away a banana.

As they reach that brown speckled stage where most people would throw them away, I throw them in the freezer.

Perfect for banana bread later!  Why waste their sweet ripeness?

 But then...well, then the problem escalates...have you ever been attacked by a flying rock-hard frozen banana?  An ugly, brown, tropical, projectile?

Yeah well...neither had my husband before he married me :-)

Eventually, opening a very full freezer can become a bit of a contact sport if I procrastinate and continue adding to my banana collection.  Yep.  I'm most definitely a procrastinator.

Of course, when I finally deal with the issue I wind up with wonderfully sweet and delicious banana bread as the payoff!

I was approaching the point recently that absolutely required me to bake with bananas when I stumbled across a wonderful recipe from The Banana Chef that allowed me to kill two birds with one stone. 

Remember a few months ago when I talked about my prolific zucchini plants and my freezer full of shredded zucchini?

This banana zucchini bread is perfect for tackling both my banana and zucchini issues and my freezer is grateful for the space I cleared out.  I've never quite understood zucchini bread...I've made it plenty of times, but it's kind of magical.  That weird green squash becomes such tasty bread!  The only changes I made when baking this are replacing half of the oil with applesauce and using regular sugar rather than caster sugar.  Oh, I also added a little nutmeg.  Turned out very well!  I baked them in a muffin tin and sent them to work with my husband for his co-workers.

I would definitely recommend trying this one out!  I'm including the recipe at the bottom, or you can check out the site where I found it here.

Banana Zucchini Bread Recipe

From The Banana Chef

3 overripe bananas

1 C fresh zucchini, grated

1 1/2 C all-purpose flour

1/2 C vegetable oil

3/4 C caster sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. In a mixing bowl, combine mashed bananas, oil, egg, vanilla, and mix.

3. Add in sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and mix.

4. Add flour, and mix until just combined.

5. Stir in zucchini.

6. Pour mixture into a greased and floured baking pan.

7. Bake for 1 hour (check for doneness at 50 minutes) or until a wooden pick comes out clean.

8. Allow to cool before removing from pan.