End of Summer Banana Bread

A couple of weekends ago, I ventured up to my family's home in Rhode Island for one last remotely summer weekend. The remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole had passed, leaving a crisp and cool temperature for Saturday. Looking out the window, though, one could be fooled that it was August, as there was not a cloud in the sky.

Given a day like that, after a week of mugginess and rain, I had to spend as much time outside as possible. After a run in the morning, my mom and I kayaked out to the beach from our house to see if the pond had breached the sandy barrier, after all the rain left it super high (and the surf was still high from the storm). A little work for the legs, a little work (um, and a blister I found today) for the arms. Thankfully, a little sweet, but not too sweet, treat helped keep my mind of my then-achy arms. Banana bread!

Walking into the kitchen late Friday, I noticed a couple of overly ripe bananas in the fridge. I hate to see produce go to waste, and so my mind wandered back to a couple of months ago, when I made some banana bread, using a recipe from Saveur Magazine as a launching pad. Though I'm trying to stay away from sweets right now, I figured a little baking and tweaking would yield a supremely healthy treat that would satiate my cravings without sending my blood sugar on a rollercoaster ride.

Using the recipe I developed here, I made a couple of adjustments, using whole wheat flour instead of pastry, cutting back the fat to 1/2 cup, using grapeseed oil not ghee, and cutting the sugar down to 1/2 cup. I swapped out chopped raw (though, after this news, what is really a raw almond?) almonds for the walnuts. I also used 4 mashed bananas, and garnished the loaves with one, sliced on the bias, as well as some organic sugar in the raw. It took about an hour and 15 minutes to bake, but the outcome was utterly delicious!