Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Sometimes the best recipes are the simplest.

I always buy bananas with such high hopes, thinking that I (or Chad) will snack on them, will eat them in sandwiches with peanut butter, and that they will not sit on my kitchen counter turning brown for a week and a half.

Yet, they always do.

But that day before you throw them away, when you're thinking to yourself, "those bananas are just about the most disgusting thing I've ever seen," just wait.

Because that should be the day you make banana bread.

By that time, the bananas are so ripe and mushy that they'll almost liquify in your batter, creating the best, moistest, most flavorful banana bread you can make.

It's possible, I think, that I secretly understand that every time I buy bananas as snack, it's really just a calling to make banana bread a week later. But even if that's true, would that be so bad? Judging from the speed at which we ate this loaf, I think probably not.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup canola oil

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs

2 large overripe bananas

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup white whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup chocolate bits or chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 1.5 pound loaf pan with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, stir together flour, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together the bananas, white sugar and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and the canola oil and mix until blended. Stir banana mixture into the flour mixture and beat until incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Pour the batter into the loaf pan, and bake for about 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Allow the bread to cool, then slice and serve.

Makes one loaf.