Lovely McDaniel Life: Snow again? and Marbled-Chocolate Banana Bread

My brother called me the other night asking what he should do with 4 brown bananas. I immediately said, "BANANA BREAD!" I told him Mrs. Betty Crocker makes a pretty good one and scanned/emailed him the recipe. I talked him through the ingredient list while he was at store and about 4 hours later he called me back telling me how delicious it was. Success!

I have been thinking about banana bread pretty much non-stop since then. Diana and Sara make a really yummy one from the Cooking Light cookbook. I decided since I was going to eat it every morning until it was gone (piggy!), I better go with the healthy option. As I was searching, this popped up:

Marbled-Chocolate Banana Bread from Cooking Light

Done! I decided to do muffins for an easy breakfast on the run (I got about 16) instead of a loaf and tweak it to get it as healthy as possible without having a major baking failure.

Here is the recipe (my additions are in light purple):

Marbled-Chocolate Banana Bread from Cooking Light
Yield: 1 loaf, 16 slices (serving size: 1 slice)

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour (I subbed 1 cup for whole wheat flour)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened (I used 2 tablespoons)
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)
1/2 cup egg substitute (I used 2 large eggs because I didn't have the substitute)
1/3 cup plain low-fat yogurt (I used fat free and a tablespoon extra since I went low on the butter)
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used 3/4 bittersweet and 1/4 semisweet)
1/2 cup pecans
Cooking spray

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°.
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 banana, egg substitute, and yogurt; beat until blended. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist.
Place chocolate chips in a medium microwave-safe bowl, and microwave at HIGH 1 minute or until almost melted, stirring until smooth. Cool slightly. Add 1 cup batter to chocolate, stirring until well combined. Spoon chocolate batter alternately with plain batter into an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Swirl batters together using a knife. (Since I made muffins, I filled the tins with the batter then put a small scoop of melted chocolate on top. I swirled it around with a knife to get the swirl effect. Next time I do these in muffin form, I will sandwich the chocolate in between the batter so the chocolate is not only on top.) Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. (I forgot to time the muffins, but I would guess around 20 minutes. Just keep an eye on them and once the toothpick comes out ALMOST clean take them out.) Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Nutritional Information (This information is without my tweaks. My tweaks would make the muffins/loaf calorie free and fat free, I'm sure of it.)
Calories: 183 (23% from fat)
Fat: 4.7g (sat 2.8g,mono 1.4g,poly 0.2g)
Protein: 3.1g
Carbohydrate: 33.4g
Fiber: 1.3g
Cholesterol: 8mg
Iron: 1.1mg
Sodium: 180mg
Calcium: 18mg

Also, It snowed again last night! It didn't stick, but the flakes were HUGE. I would say about the size of a quarter! We went outside and watched the flurries come down then went back inside to enjoy our warm gumbo (and a banana bread muffin).