Paper Palate

I’m a huge fan of Cooking Light, I’ve been subscribing to the magazine since 1997.  I can generally count on the recipes to be tasty and fairly simple to make. I also like that they provide the nutritional information, which makes it much easier, when you are counting calories, to keep your meals reasonable without going overboard. When I saw the Cooking Light Five Star Recipes at Costco, I was immediately drawn to it. It is filled with the best of the best Cooking Light recipes, lots of pictures - and over 500 recipes all in one book. 

Over the weekend I realized I had some rather sad- looking overripe bananas, so I went searching for a different banana bread to try out on my family. The Orange Banana-Nut Bread looked really good and since I had all the ingredients on hand, I went to work. The only changes I made to the recipe were to leave out the nuts since I’m not a big fan of them in breads, and I used Penzey’s Orange Peel instead of fresh since I didn’t have any oranges on hand. I only used about a half tablespoon of the orange peel since it was dried and the recommendation was to use 1/3 of what the recipe calls for when substituting. 

As I was making the bread, the addition of the orange peel and the orange juice had me intrigued because the scent was rather strong. Not that the scent was a bad thing at all, I just wasn’t sure if the orange flavor would overpower the natural goodness of banana bread as we typically enjoy it. It baked up beautifully in about 50 minutes. It was difficult allowing it to cool before cutting into it, but we managed to wait a little while. My oldest came wandering in, saying that something smelled so good it was making him hungry.  We all sampled the bread and found it to be nice and moist with just the faintest hint of orange to it. It was still moist and delicious for breakfast the next morning. I am sure it would freeze well as other quickbreads do, so you could make a double batch and save one for later. I think I’ll be making this version again since it was lighter, which means I can enjoy it without feeling like I am overindulging.

I am anxious to try more recipes from this new cookbook. I know I can trust Cooking Light to provide some fantastic light and healthy recipes that my family will enjoy.

Orange Banana-Nut bread

Source:  Cooking Light Five Star Recipes (2008)

Orange rind and juice delicately flavor this bread. For a quick breakfast, spread toasted slices of this bread with reduced-fat cream cheese and top with thinly sliced strawberries, peaches, or kiwi.

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)
1 1/2 tablespoons grated orange rind
3 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
Cooking spray

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups and level with a knife. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk.

Place sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute). Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add banana, rind, and juice; beat until blended. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist. Stir in walnuts; spoon batter into an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 5 minutes 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.