Gone Bananas!

Last Tuesday the boys had Veteran's Day off from school, so Monday afternoon I picked the boys up from school and we headed north. We drove to my sister in law's house and spent time with my nieces and sister-in-law and with my friend and her four kids.
We had a blast. In a little more than 24 hours we played cards, terrorized customers at a Subway (What? You don't want to sit with 10 children?), raced scooters at the park, and went to see Madagascar 2. Phew! I was exhausted, but it was sooo worth it!

While I was there my friend gave me a huge bunch of bananas that were spotted and just waiting to be turned into banana bread. I made a batch of my stand-by banana bread which is a lower fat recipe I doctored from allrecipes.com a few years ago. I also made a batch of marble banana bread, which was based on a recipe from the Cooking Light Holiday Cookbook. Both were yummy and I thought I would share the recipes.

Lower Fat Banana Bread
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
3 bananas, mashed (1 to 1 1/2 cup)
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 2/3 cup four
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
pinch ground ginger
pinch ground cloves

Preheat oven 350. Spray loaf pan with cooking spray.
Beat butter and sugars. Beat in the eggs, milk, bananas, and vanilla. Mix in the flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves.
Bake for about an hour. Cool on rack for 10 minutes and then remove from the pan and allow the loaf to finish cooling on the rack.

Marbled Chocolate Banana Bread

2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 bananas, mashed
1/3 light sour cream
1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 and spray a loaf pan with cooking spray.
Mix flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, beat the butter and sugar with a mixer. Beat in the vanilla and eggs. Add the mashed bananas and the sour cream. Add the dry ingredients.
Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave. (HIGH for 1 minute and then stir.) Combine 1 cup of the batter with the melted chocolate and set aside.
Spoon chocolate batter alternately with the plain batter into the prepared loaf pan. Swirl batters using a knife. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes and then remove from the pan and let cool completely on the rack.