where there's a will, there's a way

Over my holiday up north I read 'A Homemade Life' by Molly Wizenberg. This is my first blogger turned author book (as she blogs Orangette). I haven't read her blog yet, but as I read through 'A Homemade Life' I could relate to Molly in so many ways. I thought I was obsessed with food, well I may have met my match. She had me at Banana Bread, that's for sure. Anyone who can admit to a weakness for banana bread is top notch in my book. And I was totally intrigued when she wrote about adding crystallized ginger to chocolate chip banana bread. It was on sale at Bulk Barn this week and another recipe I have coming up called for crystallized ginger. We also had 4 super overripe bananas (which my mom told me to throw away)... no no no mom, I'm Making Banana Bread! Yep, all signs pointed to giving the broken oven a go and baking banana bread anyways (I hope in the future to go into detail about the oven issue, but suffice to say, it's broken and VERY expensive to repair. Damn built-ins.) After an hour, I got the old oven to crank to 340 (on a recipe that called to 350) and baked off a most perfectly executed version of 'Banana Bread with Chocolate and Crystallized Ginger' from A Homemade Life. Here it is 4 hours later.

I missed out on one of those 'mommy meet-ups' for this. Well worth it I say! It's the most sophisticated banana bread I've ever baked (um... that's not saying much really). But it worked out beautifully, tastes wonderful and freezes! Sigh, why don't I have friends like Molly? Maybe because I miss out on social functions to stay home and bake.

A side of P.C. Dolce De Leche Banana spread, it took this banana bread to new heights!