When Life Gives You...er Bananas...

You make banana bread. I had the day off work today for a beautiful four day weekend. And I had four bananas that were just about dead. At least they were well past the point where Jeff and I would eat them. For the record I like mine with still a bit of green to them. So I decided to do what millions before me have done when they have overripe bananas. I made banana bread.

I've been reading a blog called Eat Me, Delicious for years now. The author regularly posts vegetarian recipes that make my mouth water. And the baking ones make me want to dust off a taupe and become a pastry chef. So when I went looking for banana bread recipes to try, I started with Eat Me, Delicious first. I thought I had remembered a chocolate banana bread that would be fun to try. I found the recipe and tried it. Not only is the bread easy to make but it's incredibly tasty as well.

The recipe can be found here and other than the buttermilk and the cocoa powder, most of the ingredients were already in the house. Assembly took less than half an hour so it was quick that way. There was a ton of actual baking time (70 minutes in total) but by the fifty minute mark I was already drooling with the great smell. It's a rich bread. Almost dessert-like. The chocolate and banana are well balanced. It was even more amazing right out of the oven when the chocolate chips were still melty. I'll make this more often. So tasty.

To tide you over

My life recently has revolved around work, work, and sadly more work. Lately I've been working 12 hour days and have zero time for any real thought much less a blog post. If it wasn't for dinner I would never see Jeff. So these are just some images and maybe a video of mine to tide you over until I am rational again. Until then, thanks for reading. I'll try to put up some new images daily until the weekend. 

First up is a conch. We toured the world's only conch farm when we were down in Turks and Caicos. The islands were just hit with Hurricane Gustav and suffered some serious damage. Hopefully everyone down there is okay. The scary thing about this picture is that people actually eat these things. 

Down in St. Louis there is a park called Turtle Park. Can you tell why? This is Jeff and my brother Dave after they have conquered one of the larger turtles. There were about 20 statutes spread throughout the park. 

This is one of my favorite pictures from a trip my dad, my sister and I took down to Bull Shoals, Arkansas for a scuba diving trip. This is what a dive trip can look like after all the diving is done. Also a great picture of the three of us in wetsuits (sorry guys) 

And lastly, as Jon Stewart would say, your moment of zen. Here is a gorgeous and delicious looking chocolate fountain at the Bellagio in Vegas. This was a two story fountain with three different types of chocolate. Sadly no tasting.