This past weekend, I was treated out to a lovely dinner at a 2 star Michelin restaurant in Los Angeles called Providence. The standout dessert was their “banana bread pudding” and barley ice cream. I wasn’t too fond of the ice cream because of the strong star anise flavor, but the “pudding” was amazing! It had a gelatinous texture with a strong banana bread taste. It made me crave banana bread non-stop!

image via Roaming Belly

Here is an AWESOME banana bread recipe from What Megan’s Making with kitchen suggestions by me!

Best Ever Banana Bread

1/2 cup shortening

1 1/4 cup sugar (cute measuring cups from Anthropologie)

2 eggs

5 overripe bananas

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

2 Tbsp wheat germ

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease 2 loaf pans (Rachel Ray Loaf Pans from Target) . Cream together the shortening and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer (Cuisinart Hand Mixer from Best Buy). Add the eggs and bananas; blend until the bananas are thoroughly mashed. Sift the flour, salt and baking soda into a separate bowl; stir in the wheat germ. Add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture and blend until just mixed. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pans, dividing it evenly. Bake for 40-50 minutes. The bread is done when the top springs back after being pressed in the center with fingertips.

Cook for the Cure KitchenAid Measuring Cup Set

If you are looking for new set of measuring cups for your kitchen, your choices have evolved from the standard white plastic or metal sets of old.  KitchenAid has a whole line of pink kitchen appliances and tools called “Cook for the Cure“.  A portion of the sale of every item goes to Breast Cancer Research.

I think this idea is really cool.  Instead of having a boring measuring cup set and measuring spoon set, you can have a pink collection and support a cause!  This dishwasher safe set has holes in the handles to make it easy to hang, and comes with 5 measuring spoons and 5 measuring cups.  It retails for only $9.99 and 10% of that goes to Breast Cancer Research.