Blueberry Banana Bread

Since this is primarily a food blog, I guess I can start with talking about food, but I really want to bitch about inadequate kitchen lighting which caused my photos to look nasty and off-colored. But first the food. Now, like many bakers and cooks and, well, frankly anyone who enjoys creating pretty much anything (cars, paintings, bombs), the amount I bake or cook increases exponentially during times of stress. This is why I think the holidays are kind of nice. Not really because I love spending time with my always amicable family (eye roll), but because I have the joy of baking a smorgasbord of cookies and pies and such. Kitchen therapy is so much cheaper than an actual therapist.

That's where this blueberry bread came from. It's stress bread. Well, actually, it should be a chocolate chip banana bread (which gets baked in our house at least once a week), but I wanted to change it up. Pretty sure my family almost killed me for leaving out the chocolate, but before they could impale me with their swords, I shouted out all of the phytochemicals blueberries contain for like an hour and forced them to listen! They loved it. Truly. Hence why I am still alive.

Ok so I can bitch now right? I'm very disappointed with the lighting of the kitchen. These pictures look like I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. Maybe I don't, but I promise, I'm working on it. One day, I'll probably win some pretty bad-ass photography awards or something. It's debatable, but I'm thinking I might be a prodigy. However, right now I just really hate these lights and am going to need to find a solution like buying a new house or some other highly logical solution.

Blah blah blah... but what all five of my readers really care about is the recipe. I know. I can hear you all right now yearning to know how to make this super delicious and healthy bread. Oh but I failed to say just how healthy it is! Blueberries! Whole wheat! Bananas! Applesauce! Low fat! Tender! Delicious! Amazing! Food of the gods!

If that didn't convince anyone, it's because nobody has read this blog...

Ingredients:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 scant tsp salt
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup apple sauce
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups blueberries (or chocolate chips, or nuts, or dried fruit, or skittles... but that might be odd)

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Combine both flours, salt and baking soda in a medium sized mixing bowl and set aside. In a separate mixing bowl, whisk the oil and sugar until well blended. Beat in both eggs, one at a time. Once blended and light in color, slowly add the flour mixture and stir until ALMOST combined (you don't want to stir too much because it will overdevelop the gluten which will cause the bread to be chewy).

Add apple sauce and mashed bananas and blend until just combined (still don't stir too much!!). Gently stir in the blueberries and pour into well greased bread pan.

Bake for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, and then flip onto cooling rack to continue cooling.

Dig in (hint: if using chocolate chips, eat this bread warm).