Banana Bread w/ Toasted Walnuts
Makes one 9-inch loaf

Ingredients
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pan
1 1/4 cups walnuts, chopped coarse
3/4 cup Sugar (if you want to make it Sugar Free add 1 cup sugar substitute instead of Sugar)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 very ripe, soft, darkly speckled large bananas, mashed well (about 1 1/2 cups)
1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
2 large eggs, beaten lightly
3/4 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled (or olive oil)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 350°F (175°C) degrees. Grease the bottom and sides of a 9 by 5-inch loaf pan; dust with flour, tapping out the excess.
2. Spread the walnuts on a baking sheet and toast until fragrant, 5 to 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.
3. Whisk the flour, sugar (or Splenda), baking soda, salt, and walnuts together in a large bowl; set aside.
4. Mix the mashed bananas, yogurt, eggs, butter, and vanilla with a wooden spoon in a medium bowl. Lightly fold the banana mixture into the dry ingredients with a rubber spatula until just combined and the batter looks thick and chunky. Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan.
5. Bake until the loaf is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 55 minutes. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

   This years garden season was quite a fun one. Mainly because it was the first garden at our new house. Although, I must admit, I had not planned to have one this year because of the house renovations, full-time job, and elderly dog to take care of. But then I saw some plants on sale at our local market and I couldn’t resist.
   The garden started out quite a bit rocky. A few weeks after I planted everything I went out to the garden and realized that I was not doing a great job at keeping up with the maintenance, the weeds had taken over. So that day I buckled down, pulled the weeds, unburied our plants, put in some paths, covered the bare areas with cut grass and “started again”.
   Not everything did well, and a few plants died… we can’t win ‘em all. But after the garden got established it did pretty well. Thankfully things got ripe at a rate that I could process them and use them up before they went bad.
   I thought it would be fun to put together a list of recipes for the tomatoes and peppers. Feel free to send me any recipes you would like to include in the line up.

DRY INGREDIENTS
2 1/4 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 cup sugar substitute
1/4 cup milled flax seed
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup all-bran cereal

WET INGREDIENTS
1 cup natural peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 15oz can white beans
1/2 cup artificial honey

OPTIONAL ADDITIONS
1 1/4 cup chopped nuts (I used cashews and walnuts)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F . Lightly grease one cookie sheet. In a large mixing bowl combine the dry ingredients. In the blender combine all the wet ingredients and purée (adding a little water until it forms the consistency of a thick smoothie).
2. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix well (i used my hands). Once mixed, add the nuts and stir (I again, used my hands)
3. Lightly press mixture into the prepared pan. Once the mixture is mostly pressed down, I covered it with wax paper and used a rolling pin to flatten it out even further. This makes it more like a granola bar. Bake at 325 degrees F for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool for 10 minutes then cut into bars. Let bars cool completely in pan before removing or serving.

*You can use any combination of nuts, chocolate chips, raisins, etc. Plus you can even leave out the cocoa if you want just peanut butter flavor.