Banana bread was one of those things I always meant to make but never got around to. We would put bananas in the freezer and inevitably forget about them. I have tossed so many bananas into the yard waste I can’t even remember. Part of our plan to be more frugal is to waste less food. Food waste is a huge problem, especially in America with up to 40% of all food produced wasted according to the National Resources Defense Council. Many people buy more than they need and a lot of it gets tossed out. We have always gone through the pantry a couple of times a year and donated what we are not eating but that is harder to do with the lettuce you fully intended to eat but has now formed a mushy mess in the bottom of the vegetable drawer. I have been really working hard at lowering our produce waste lately and only buying enough fruits and vegetables for us to actually eat.
Our efforts have been working and we no longer have several bananas in the freezer or mushy lettuce in the fridge but we do run out of fresh fruit and vegetables sometimes but you know what? It is completely fine. I keep frozen fruit and vegetables in the freezer and when we run out I make sure to go to the store the next possible day. We have gotten much better about buying only what we need and now that our berries and squash are beginning to ripen I don’t really have to worry about running out. We just head out to the garden and see what we can find. Right now we have blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and huckleberries ripe and my kids have been out there daily munching away.
Finding a good banana bread recipe was a difficult task. We don’t like it very sweet and it needed to be easy enough for me to put together with the kids running around. I found this one at Mr.Breakfast.com several months ago that I absolutely love. We have since gone gluten and diary-free and I have been able to adapt it easily with pre-made gluten-free flour and coconut oil. I also cut the sugar in half because we are trying to reduce our sugar intake in our house.
I found some gluten-free flour at Costco that I thought I would try it with this banana bread and so far I have been really pleased with it. I can’t taste any garbanzo beans and unsuspecting family members haven’t been able to tell the difference so I may branch out to something else. I have been hearing about this butter flavored coconut oil for months in my mom’s group and I used it with the banana bread. I am not sure if it is worth the extra cost yet. The container is not very big and using 8 tablespoons for the banana bread recipe made a huge dent in it so I might just reserve it for recipes where it really matters. Ha ha don’t look at the salt I used. We have been out of Kosher salt the last couple of weeks and my husband and I kept forgetting to buy it. He is a huge salt lover though so we have many different kinds stashed away in the cupboard and the sea salt made the cut as our temporary substitute. Do you guys ever do that? A box of Kosher salt lasts us many months and we never remember to buy it when we are out. Somehow since we rarely need salt it slips our minds every time we are at the store. I should probably start buying two so we have an extra for our emergency kit.
First things first measure out your coconut oil and your sugar.
Cream them in a bowl. I am fond of the hand mixer for smaller jobs but you could use a stand mixer as well.
Beat 2 eggs into a bowl.
Mash up your bananas. I did them one by one in the egg bowl to save on dishes.
Add your flour slowly. I split it into 2 1/2 cups and 1/4 cup and slowly mixed them in.
Yum! If you like nuts or chocolate chips in your banana bread you can add them here. My son is too young for nuts so I leave them out. We also don’t eat a lot of sugar so I leave out the chocolate chips.
Pour your mixture into a greased loaf pan and tamp it down. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
There you have it! Yummy banana bread fresh out of the oven. The hardest part is waiting for it to cool!
Gluten-free Dairy-free Banana Bread
Quick and easy banana bread easily made gluten and dairy-free.
Ingredients
- 8 Tablespoons Coconut oil (or butter)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 beaten eggs
- 3 bananas
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 and 1/4 cups All Purpose Gluten-Free Flour mix
- Optional 1/3 cups Walnuts
Directions
- Step 1 Grease a standard loaf pan and set oven temperature to 350 degrees.
- Step 2 Cream the coconut oil and sugar together in a large bowl.
- Step 3 Beat two eggs together and add them as well as three mashed bananas to the bowl.
- Step 4 Mix in salt and baking soda. Add flour, mixing slowly.
- Step 5 Bake for 40-50 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean in the center of the loaf.
