Don’t lie. A little part of you sang the old, Gwen Stefani classic in your head. In fact, it probably helped you spell “banana” when you were younger. It’s okay. I won’t judge. It happened to all of us.
In other news, Spring Break just happened. Y’know what that means…Realistically? Chilling and watching Netflix or Hulu or some form of social media…at your parent’s. Yeah, I said it. Partying-schmartying. That’s stuff is only in the movies, unless you’re that rare breed who is actually on the beach…having the time of your life. In that case, congratulations. I’m jealous. While most of us are sitting around like old times at our parent’s, I imagine you’re dripping beads of sweat as the sun blares down at you, and the sand squishes between your toes with every step you take.
Meanwhile, I felt like satisfying my midday, snack craving with a banana that is sitting on the old dining room table, one among three that have spots of yellow. You should know that there is a very small sliver of time that I will actually eat bananas: not when they’re green, yellow or brown – no. I like them when they are yellow and brown, when you don’t bite down on a terse yellow-white banana but you bite down on a soft, plump one. The point is that the banana was too old even for me, and if it’s too old for me, it’s definitely too old for anyone to eat.
Now, when I’m in my room at school and I can’t eat bananas, I usually just make paleo banana pancakes out of convenience.
(Note: to make this recipe vegan, certain flours can be used for every one serving of egg. Typically, 1 heaping tbsp and 2 tbsps of water for every serving.)
Lately, I’ve been craving banana bread. Loving as much vegan food as I do, I typed in “vegan banana bread” in my google search. I found a recipe on the reliable Food Network.
Unlike at school, my dad had all the ingredients to make it, except vanilla soy yogurt.
After googling what I could use to replace the one ingredient, I found out that a lot of people have a hard time finding it too, and luckily, someone had blogged about how to make it from scratch, and those ingredients were too found in the kitchen.
Upon mixing the ingredients to together, I thought I had it all wrong. Before I poured the wet ingredients into the dry ones, I thought that I accidentally used too much oil or the recipe led me astray, but I dumped it, and it looked decent. It didn’t seem like there was much batter, but I split it into two bread pans and put it in the oven anyway. The next thing I knew was that it smelled like banana bread. I rejoiced.
When my parents finally tried some, my dad said that it was more moist than his usual banana bread. Of course, having had vegan brownies and chocolate cake before, I knew it would be. Nonetheless, for how nervous I was, that said something.
So ladies, I highly recommend vegan banana bread. Not only is it a lot less work, but a lot less mess AND it’s moist AND it stays fresh longer.
What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for your bananas to get old? Well, you should. Happy baking, collegiettes! Email us if you have any more ideas about what to do with your old bananas.
(Hint: throwing them out does not count. It’s wasteful, unless it’s for bacon. Then, it’s ‘murica.)
Websites used:
http://www.kitchenkonfidence.com/2015/10/brown-butter-banana-bread-recip…
http://fusion.net/story/116818/throwback-thursday-10-gifs-to-commemorate…
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/vegan-banana-br…
http://paleoleap.com/flourless-banana-pancakes/
http://aveganlife.blogspot.com/2009/06/soy-yogurt-substitution.html
http://giphy.com/gifs/eating-homer-simpson-bacon-JRQ1PegFVKXBu