crazy kaye's banana nut bread!

okay so i am notorious for not following recipes exactly. its not because i can't, or that i think i can do it better, i'm just not exact about things + i like to make recipes a little healthier than they usually come. and everyone has different taste buds. my husband and i find a lot of dessert recipes turn out way too sweet for our tastes, so i almost always reduce the sugar by half. im also of the persuasion that just about everything tastes better with a little dash of cinnamon! :)

growing up, ingenuity was a survival trait in our family. we didn't have much, and we were taught to make do with what you have, and with an ounce of creativity, you could make it work. that philosophy has stuck with me and carries me along in the kitchen. if i'm out of an ingredient, i can't really justify a trip to the store for that one item, so i substitute or make do without it. where there seems to be a roadblock, i see an opportunity to try something new!

i wanted to preface any recipes i post with this explanation, because the recipes might seem 'weird' to the reader. but i assure you that i wont post any recipes that dont turn out delicious! :)

so today that brings us to banana nut bread. i was driven to make a healthy, handy snack that i could easily munch on while nursing elijah that took about 0 prep time. (now if i can only keep christopher from eating them all!!) i looked at several mainstream recipes and 'herbert-fied' them. i am sure you could make this even healthier by making it totally vegan and such, but lately ive been into real eggs and butter so i didn't forgo those! (i'm blaming it on the pregnancy!)

this recipe makes 1 big loaf + 1 full pan of muffins. you could cut it in half if you dont want to make that much, but you can either share some with a friend, freeze them for later, or find that they wont last long in your house! :)

2 cups flour (i used 1 cup spelt and 1 cup brown rice flour)

1 cup oats

1 cup of 'twister power' by navitas (just a mix of sprouted ground flax seeds, chia seeds, and brown rice)

1 cup sugar (i used honey powder, but you could easily use liquid honey too!)

3 tsp baking powder

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp cinnamon

6 ripe bananas

4 eggs or egg replacer

1/4 cup of butter or oil

1/4 cup of apple sauce (or just another stick of butter if you'd like!)

2 cups chopped nuts (i used walnuts)

i pureed the bananas in the food processor, then added the sugar, butter, eggs, and vanilla. in a separate bowl, i mixed the dry ingredients, then combined them. lastly, i folded in the nuts.

preheat the oven to 350. grease up your muffin pans and/or loaf pans, pour batter in and bake until toothpick comes out clean! my oven is old and finicky, but it took the muffins about 15-20 min to bake, and the loaf i made took about 40 minutes. just watch your bread and test it out! :)

hope you enjoy making and eating these muffins!