Order of Grace with a Side of Sass: Classic Banana Bread with a Twist

So...its been over a month since I posted a recipe on the blog...such sadness. I promise I didn't stop cooking completely, life just became a bit more complicated with working nights and my schedule being bombarded with new things. Loving life right now though. It's a constant state of learning and growth it seems like. I've never felt more like a professional in the field I'm in. It's a great feeling of accomplishment to be finally counseling people rather than simply reading about it. It's a blessing and yet a curse because of the incredible influence I now have on these folks. God has been so good and placed me in an internship that is molding me and shaping me to work with young people in such a new and refreshing way. I'm grateful for that.

Anyhoo...my hubby has been so great about making dinners on his own and even preparing a few meals here and there for us both when I work late. Recently, realizing that we have literally NO food in our house and are too lazy and cheap to go do anything about it, I decided to get my cooking and baking back in business. What we did have was about 9 frozen bananas just developing frost bite in our freezer. Banana bread is amazing and good basically at any point (breakfast, lunch, dinner). I wanted to try a new recipe out...and adjusted this recipe on the Cooking Light website to incorporate some of my own creativity...always a good thing...maybe.. :)

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)
1/3 cup plain low-fat yogurt or vanilla works fine as well
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350°.
Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk.
Place sugar and butter in a large bowl, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute). Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add banana, yogurt, and vanilla; beat until blended. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist. Spoon batter into an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray and sprinkled with some flour on the bottom of the dish. Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

**My additions: I doubled the recipe in a huge bowl. I added the sugar with my dry ingredients and it still turned out fine. After transferring 1/2 the batter into the one bread pan, I added about 3/4 cups of chocolate chips into the remaining batter and place in the other bread pan. The original recipe did not call for cinnamon...I just feel it adds a little something to it. :) Also, I used vanilla instead of plain yogurt because that's what I had on hand!