Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Bananas are delicious.  A perfect food, some would say, loaded with vitamin B, that even comes in their very own traveling case.  We buy bananas to eat them, but bananas are tricky.  In the grocery store, it takes time to select the perfect bunch, I often grab them last as it takes some thought.  Not too green, but not overly yellow.  Slightly firm to the touch, but not hard or squishy.  And no matter what, no dark black spots or god forbid, bruises because these guys need to last.

In my kitchen, bananas hold the highest ranking in the fruit hierarchy, not because my kids love them (they don’t), but because they sit on the very top of my two-tiered wire fruit basket on the counter.  Apples, oranges, grapefruit, mangos, and even tomatoes are all below, but bananas, are on top, they are viewed from across the room, they are kings.  Sadly, their reign is short, only a few days, and they turn.

Commonly, it is a small fruit fly that informs me that their time has come and gone unnoticed by me.  What is left is always a bit sad, a bunch of, formerly beautiful, now untouched, battered-looking former “kings” still resting in their fruit throne.  But bananas have a greater purpose, they can do what their fellow fruits typically cannot do…they can be made into sweet delicious bread.

So, when in doubt, I say, making banana bread with chocolate chip or double chocolate is my favorite.  I make banana bread often.  Although my kids don’t appreciate a banana on its own, they enjoy a slice of warm chocolate chip banana bread almost any day of the week.  This is one of the simplest recipes I make, just 8 ingredients, one of which is a beautiful bunch of bananas you took time selecting, yet somehow overlooked.