So I think we (I) can all agree that this blog is entirely fueled by the personal gratification I experience after writing. I won't really mind if nobody is inspired to go out and be frugal and creative. It's ok, because I am the one who benefits most from putting finger to keyboard.

If you're like me (even though we've established that there might not be a 'you'; that it probably is just a 'me'), you like bananas with a tint of green on them. They're not too mushy, and the flavor tastes much fresher. I will not eat a banana if is in the yellow to brown stage. So once bananas approach middle-age, they are no longer appealing (get it? like a peeling? That's a Nana pun). So what to do with a banana in this stage? There is only one thing:

Make Banana Bread!

Recently, my roommates and I collected several bananas and we realized that none of us were interested in actually eating them. So I looked up a recipe on-line and we planned to make banana bread.

Our Recipe:

• 1 c. butter, softened
• 2 c. sugar
• 7 large ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 1/2 t. vanilla extract
• 4 eggs slightly beaten
• 3 c. flour
• 1/2 t. salt
• 2 t. baking soda

We're just making half because we're going to start with just 4 bananas.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream butter and sugar; blend in bananas, vanilla, and eggs.
2. Whisk together the dry ingredients.
3. Add dry ingredients stirring until just combined.
4. Pour the mixture into two greased 9x5 in. loaf pans.
5. Bake at 350 degrees. Check on the bread after 35 minutes. Continue to check on it until a toothpick comes out clean. It could take up to 60 minutes. After it is done, cool it in its loaf pan for 10 minutes, then finish cooling on a wire rack.

Now, this is great, right? You forget, however, that we are but lowly college students with much more "out"come than our income can handle. So naturally, we next decided how we could get the ingredients without paying for them.

To date, we have collected

• 1 c. of sugar by taking sugar packets
• the required amount of salt from a salt shaker in the dining hall
• 4 bananas
• and 1/2 cup of butter through the pats of butter packaged in little plastic containers.

Good deal, right? Well, sure, it would appear so. Unfortunately, we have had to buy about half of the ingredients on our own. Luckily, with my Bonus Bucks card, we could get the necessary flour, vanilla and baking soda.

Only one problem remains: we have no way to bake the bread! We may end up actually buying a loaf pan. Or we may just try to create one by sculpting several sheets of aluminum foil into the desired shape. And in the end, if our banana bread doesn't satiate our cravings, we will at least spiced up our week a bit with all of the scheming, collecting, and hoarding!