a hurricane of yuck

So we had a bunch of bananas from the recent trip to the food pantry and also still have a bunch left in the freezer from previous bananas bought/received. We needed to come up with something to share for games night tonight, so I decided to make banana bread now that we replenished our supply of baking goods. I call it "bastardized" because I didn't find a single recipe online that sounded great to me so I combined the best parts of three different recipes to come up with what should be a very banana spiced banana bread. Here's the amalgamated recipe, though I have no idea how well this will turn out yet. I'll know in about an hour.

Ingredients:
2 eggs
2/3 cups white sugar
4 very ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 cup applesauce
1/3 cup nonfat milk
1 tablespoon olive oil (I substituted this for vegetable oil because it's healthier)
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease a bread pan with shortening and dust it lightly with cinnamon sugar.
2. In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy, about five minutes. Beat in bananas, applesauce, milk, and oil.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Stir flour mixture into banana mixture just until blended. Pour batter into pan.
4. Bake in preheated pan until golden and a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean, about one hour. Turn bread out onto wire rack to cool.

Obviously the baking time is an estimate based on the recipes used, but I'll update this to give a more accurate estimate once I've finished baking it. I'll also be sure to let everyone know if this is actually a good recipe or if I bollocksed it up.

Results:
It's a very moist banana bread, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm thinking it might need a bit more flour (2 cups maybe) and more baking powder since it didn't quite rise as much as I would expect a banana bread to rise (3 teaspoons maybe). It took about one and one-half hours to cook. The knife in the center came out clean but it was still moist on the ends and was a bit wobbly. Flavor-wise it is very tasty!

I finally made the chicken soup today. I've been wanting to make it for a little while. I started with the stock I made from the roaster chickens we had two and three weeks ago. I added the Goya 16 Bean Soup mix that I soaked overnight in cold water. I brought the stock to a slow boil, added the beans and then reduced the heat and let it simmer until the beans were almost tender. I also seasoned it with garlic, salt, pepper, some dried herbs and the Desert Gardens Habanero Seasoning that quantumswordsmn and chenoachem brought us this past summer. I love the habanero seasoning! It's great for soups! I then added a soup and stew veggie mix that I bought at the store which had fresh carrot, parsnip, celery, leek, turnip and greens. I also added the chicken meat and two apples at the same time. I let this cook until the carrots and parsnips were tender.

Overall it wasn't that much different than a traditional homemade chicken soup, but the apples added a nice touch of sweetness and a good contrast to the slightly salted and hot flavor of the soup. The apples and habanero worked very nicely together.

fossilapostle chose seven of my interests for me to explain. Comment and I'll pick seven of your interests for you to explain in your own LJ post.

68k - I am a classic Macintosh enthusiast, and by classic Macintosh I mean the old SEs and LCIII and such made with the Motorola 68k processors. Also, the Commodore Amiga line was manufactured using the Motorola 68k processors, too, and I happen to be an Amiga enthusiast. Believe it or not, I have a fully functional Mac SE FDHD running System 7.3 and AppleShare Server 3.0 with an external 20 GB SCSI hard drive. I also own a Commodore Amiga 2000HD with Video Toaster. This makes me happy. :)

bobbo byrnes - Bobbo is the guitarist and vocalist for The Fallen Stars. He used to be the lead guitarist for one of my all-time favorite Nashua bands, The Gypsy Mechanics. I miss the hayday of the Gypsy Mechanics playing at the since defunct Red Square in Nashua. He was always wild at live shows. I remember one time he wandered off mid song while still playing and went dancing in the dance club in the next room (gotta love wireless!) and came back in to finish the song with the band. Good times. :)

cooking - I do all of the cooking at home and, as much as I grumble about having to cook and would like painted_wolfto cook for me once in a while, I still really enjoy cooking. It's very much an art. I seem to have a very good knack for just grabbing ingredients and turning them into something tasty. It's very helpful when times are tough!

evilman - Evilman was a comic title released by Moonstone and was very wonderfully odd. Evilman is (as seen in my userpic) a bean-shaped dude whose belly button was a portal to another dimension. They only released a few issues and I'm only missing one or two of them.

fry bread - After European settlers made contact with Native Americans they started trading with them, including dry goods. Native Americans used the flour, sugar, milk and butter they got from the whites in all sorts of creative ways, including making fry bread. It's kinda like fried dough and it's absolutely delicious. Some ways of eating it include topping it with the usual fried dough topping, topping it with wojapi (a Lakota berry pudding) or topping it with taco ingredients (which is aptly named an indian taco).

glbtq - Well, I suppose since today is National Coming Out Day it's only appropriate that I start by saying that I happen to be one or two of those letters. ;) GLBTQ stands for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning. I am very much interested in equal rights regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression.

snmnmnm - SNMNMNM is a marvelous geek rock band kinda like They Might Be Giants. Instead of bass they use tuba and often they forgo guitars instead using accordians. It's fantastic!