Cooking Blogs

So the other day at work I came to the conclusion that I needed to start reading cooking blogs.  I googled some of the more popular blogs, and went a little crazy.  I have 11 different cooking blogs on my favorite list.  I have really been into cooking lately, I think it’s due to the clean diet.  Every night I had to prepare our meals for the next day.  It was fun preparing new types of food.  I had never made wild rice or quinoa (pronounced keen-wa) prior to this diet.  Two new food items that David and I have decided to add to our list of regulars.  Quinoa reminds me of cous-cous, but better.  You can basically substitute it for rice in any meal.  The blog that I have really started to love is http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/ .  Check it out when you get a chance.  Well today I made her recipe for “Peanut Butter Banana Bread.”  I mean why didn’t I think of that, peanut butter is delicious (one of my favorite foods), and Banana Bread is delicious….and bananas taste good with peanut butter.  Ding ding ding ding ding, why not put peanut butter in banana bread?!?!  While it was baking the smell of peanut butter and bananas took over our house.  It made our mouths water.  The peanut butter actually takes the edge off of the banana-e flavor in banana bread.

Whenever I make banana bread I remember a story of when my mom made it when I was little.  I’m not going to lie, the thought of putting bananas into bread was not appealing for me when I was little.  I must have been with my mom when she was making the banana muffins, because I knew that there was no way I was going to eat them, I mean come on, there’s bananas in it, yuck!  Well Alanna must not have been around when this was going down, because I remember walking into our dining room when she was eating one.  I asked her, “how’s the muffin?” and she replied, “it’s really good.”  I then asked her, so…do you know what kind of muffin that is? (I couldn’t believe that she was brave enough to eat it, so I had to ask if she knew what she was eating)  Alanna replied, “um…duh it’s a regular plain muffin.”  I quickly informed her that no, it was a banana bread muffin.  Of course she didn’t believe me at first…I think she may have even asked my mom what kind of muffin they were.  As soon as she realized that it was, in fact, a banana bread muffin, she pushed the muffin away with a disgusted look on her face like yuck I can’t believe I was eating that.  But we are both grown up now and love banana bread.

Here are some baking pictures of the peanut butter banana bread.  If you are interested in trying it, you can find the recipe here: http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2011/02/peanut-butter-banana-bread/