A couple years ago, a friend and I were discussing certain items people just liked buying. Her mom always bought toilet paper, even though there she had a closet full of toilet paper and was unlikely to run out in the next year. I wasn’t sure what my thing was. This week it occurred to me what it was on our second grocery shopping trip of the week: fruit.
Even if we’re only running in for a couple things for dinner and have a fridge full of apples, oranges and other fruits, we’re lured in by the beautiful displays of in-season fruits at Whole Foods or the sale prices at Publix, especially in the summer when berries are in season and plentiful. This becomes an issue when some of the fruits spoil quickly, like strawberries. I’m forced to find creative ways to use the fruits I don’t want to freeze, such as a Peach Blueberry Cake or Berry Vanilla Cake. (I use “forced” loosely. It’s definitely not that much of a hardship to make/eat cake.)
This problem extends to one of our fruit staples as well – bananas. I buy a bunch of bananas each week to use in cereal and as easy lunch snacks, but no matter what I do, they start to brown way too quickly. Although I always intend to use the too-brown bananas for baked goods or banana soft serve, I often run out of time or get distracted by some other beautiful baked good.
Not this week though. With strawberries on the brink of going bad and a couple of brown bananas, I desperately wanted to make a summery banana bread. I threw this together based on two favorite recipes from Joy the Baker. The result? A very moist bread with a subtle banana bread, and the strawberries add a touch of sweetness. I could probably reduce or remove the butter to make this even healthier, as the fruit, buttermilk and eggs will likely keep this bread moist enough.
This bread didn’t last long in my house. Between breakfast, a lunch snack and dessert, this was gone in three days. At least the oats and the fruit make it sort of healthy, right?
Recipe
Adapted from Joy’s Brown Butter Banana Strawberry Bread & Low Fat Oatmeal Banana Bread
Yummy! I like how you added strawberries to the traditional banana bread. Nice! I just made an “Oat-licious” zucchini bread. I lurve oatmeal in baking!