Recipe Thursday: Beware, Banana Haters

Carl and I have been eating A LOT of bananas lately. I'd be willing to bet that we go through more bananas in a week than all of the monkeys at the Riverbanks Zoo combined! I actually don't care too much for bananas on their own; occasionally I'll cut one up and put it in a fruit salad but most of our bananas end up getting frozen for use in smoothies, and also to make my new favorite treat:

Banana soft serve!

This is the best thing that happened to me since I gave up sugar. All you do is take a few frozen bananas and put them in a blender or food processor for a couple of minutes and they start to take on a fluffy soft-serve-y consistency. Put it into a bowl and inhale! I've been adding cacao powder to give it a hint of chocolatey flavor (that's why it's sort of brown in the picture), and I'd imagine that cinnamon or vanilla would be nice additions as well, though I haven't tried it yet. I've also crumbled up a snack ball and put it on top to make it more sundae-like. The first time I made it I was amazed at how easy and delicious it was, so now it's become a regular treat. 

In other banana news, I also tried my hand at making the banana bread recipe from this cookbook:

Photo courtesy of Amazon, if you couldn't tell.

Babycakes is made up of all vegan recipes for cupcakes, cookies, and other treats, most of which are also sugar and gluten free- perfect, right? Julie gave this to me last year for Christmas and I'm ashamed that I haven't made anything from it until recently, especially since the banana bread was so delightful. The cookbook features a lot of funny testimonials from celebrities that frequent the actual Babycakes bakery in NYC and Erin McKenna is such a witty writer herself that it read more like a book than a cookbook. I highly recommend it. I'm tempted to go to New York so that I can sit in the bakery for hours and eat up all of their treats. The only downside to the recipes is that a lot of the ingredients are on the more expensive side. I bought a little packet of xanthan gum- an ingredient that helps bind the other ingredients together, much like an egg- and it was $13 at EarthFare. Holy cow! Luckily you don't use much in each recipe so it'll end up going a long way, but still, it must have little flakes of gold mixed in it or something. I neglected to take pictures of my banana bread, mainly because Carl and I devoured it so quickly, so next time I make it I'll have to remember to snap a few pictures to post. 

Louis and Aditi are visiting us from D.C. and Carl took off today and tomorrow to spend some quality time with them. I wasn't so fortunate, and now I'm super jealous because they're hanging out at the beach and I'm about to head to work. Boo! I did get to sleep in a little bit today and even had the pleasure of going to the DMV this morning. Apparently the Leeds Avenue DMV was a good choice for a Thursday morning- not crowded but still scary enough that I felt violated by the time I left. It didn't take as long as I expected so that's why I'm back home talking about bananas before work (I didn't want anyone to think I was blogging on the job). I hope everyone has a lovely day- go to the beach! I'll be back soon to tell you about my blunders over the past week/weekend. I was doing so well with the ABC's that I knew it was only a matter of time before I messed up big time.