Whole Grains + Bananas + Yogurt = Tasty

Here I go - almost two months late again. I must confess that I didn't think juggling grad school with work would be this hard, and then the personal stuff intervenes and it's been weeks since I posted anything. I start a project (with good intentions) to post about and somehow about halfway through I realize that I'm thinking about diffusion theory or AIDS agenda setting in the 1980's and suddenly I can't remember whether it was 1 teaspoon baking powder or 1 teaspoon baking soda I just added.

Needless to say, once I can't remember what I put in the bowl I can't very well post about that attempt without cooking the whole thing another time, and I just don't have time for that. I have a whole list of partially written recipes that just need another run through to be "blog-ready", but somehow I always get distracted by some other shiny, new recipe.

Not any longer. Today I managed to redo my favorite banana bread recipe. I've actually been making this recipe (in a slightly evolving form) for about a year. It has been relatively stable for about 4 months. I fed it to some very helpful co-workers in the form of muffins (makes a dozen, cook for about 25 minutes). And I took it to my office as a loaf. However, when I went to write it up I couldn't remember exactly how I did it.

Today I kept notes. I haven't tried regular whole wheat (I don't keep it on hand) so if anyone tries this with regular whole wheat leave a comment and let me know how it goes.



My High Fiber, High Protein, Low(er) Fat Banana Bread

3 bananas
2/3 cup lowfat yogurt (something thick and all natural, I have good luck with Brown Cow)
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup oat flour, sifted (you need to sift this because oat flour clumps)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped, toasted walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

1. Mash the bananas with a wooden spoon. Stir in the yogurt, sugar, and eggs until well combined.
2. Add the spices and vanilla and stir.
3. Measure the whole wheat pastry flour into a bowl and sift the remaining dry ingredients into the bowl. Add the walnuts and stir to combine (adding the walnuts this way keeps them from sinking to the bottom).
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined.
5. Pour into a butter and floured loaf pan (preferably a 9 in. x 5 in. x 3 in.).
6. Bake for about 50 minutes or until well browned and a toothpick comes out clean.
7. Cool in the pan on a cooling rack for about 10 minutes.
8. Slide a knife around the edge of the pan to loosen the loaf and then ease the loaf out onto the cooling rack to cool completely.