Strawberry-Banana Bread

I hate throwing away produce. Hate it. But no matter what my good intentions are with every grocery trip, I seem to always wind up throwing something away. Well, this week I decided that before those bananas turned black on their little hanger, I was going to figure out something to do with them! I also had a container of strawberries sitting in the fridge and the lightbulb just lit up for me!! Very ripe bananas + strawberries = Strawberry-Banana Bread!! I'm a genius, didn't you know?? Ok, maybe not, but it was still a pretty darn good idea! I searched the interwebs for a recipe, and when I found one that suited my taste, I headed for the kitchen and got to work. It was quick to prepare and then I just had to wait the excruciating hour for it to bake.

I'm not a very patient person.

I don't much like to wait.

For anything.

But, especially not for sweets. So, it was fortunate that I also needed to cook dinner and was distracted by that for awhile. And then I had laundry to fold.

Oh what fun *smirk*

And then the hour had passed and I got to pull the warm, sweet bread out of the oven. Guess what I did then?? Waited some more!! I'm not sure how often I will make sweet bread since they test my ability to be patient so much, but this one turned out fabulous and it was well worth the wait in the end *grin*

Definitely a nice change from the standard banana bread recipe, and I got to salvage two produce ingredients and save them from the grasps of the trash can! Hopefully this will inspire you to find nifty ways to save your produce too :)

Strawberry-Banana Bread

Adapted from The Sweets Life

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 no-sugar applesauce
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 3 mashed bananas
• 1 cup chopped strawberries 

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9 x 5 loaf pan.
2. In a small bowl, mix flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.
3. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars. Mix in eggs, vanilla, applesauce, and mashed bananas. Stir in chopped strawberries.
4. Add flour mixture into the wet ingredients and mix to combine.
5. Pour into greased loaf pan and bake for 60-65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan before removing and cooling fully on a wire rack.