Banana Bread

Stop reading if you are squeamish about bugs (that means YOU, Spice...I mean it! Don't read this!). Why I am putting this story on a food blog, I have no idea...

So last night, I'm coming home from rehearsal, step into my apartment and turn on the light. Scurrying right across the floor is a gigantic cockroach. I definitely do not like bugs. Spice, however, may take the cake with this one (luckily she wasn't home). The only other time we have seen a cockroach in our apartment was at the beginning of the summer and it happened to be in Spice's room. I'm sitting on the couch minding my own business (its probably about 11:30pm) when Spice screams, runs out of her room, starts hyperventilating and bursts into tears. We tried to find the cockroach in her room, but couldn't. Spice was determined to take EVERY PIECE OF FURNITURE out of her room to find the little bugger. Long story short, we woke up all our neighbors and our land lady's son had to come kill it for us. Side note: This was cyber cockroach. He flew, hit walls and literally wouldn't die despite multiple wacks with shoes and a pool of bug spray.

Anyways...so last night, upon seeing the cockroach, I knew I would have to kill it before Spice came home or we would have another freak out. Luckily, this was a normal (by normal I mean he didn't fly) cockroach and I attacked him with bug spray and a broom and he was gone within 15 minutes. And when I say bug spray I literally mean there were pools of bug spray all around our apartment. After the killing, I washed up and even swiffered the floors, but it still smelled like bug spray and chemicals.

Out of sheer brilliance, I made some banana bread to make the apartment smell better. Only I would think to bake instead of spraying air freshener.

I found this recipe in the latest issue of Cooking Light and it turned out GREAT! I made a few changes which I wrote below. The bread stayed very moist and had a great crispy crust after cooling. Despite reading about cockroaches for several minutes, I think you should make this banana bread this weekend.

Banana Bread
Cooking Light

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
1/4 cup oat bran
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 medium bananas, mashed
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt
1/4 cup canola oil

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Combine flours and next 4 ingredients (through baking soda) in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Combine banana and next 4 ingredients (through oil) in a small bowl. Add banana mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.

Spoon the batter into a 9 by5 inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 325 degrees for one hour and ten minutes. Cool for ten minutes in a pan on a wire rack and remove from pan.