Peanut (Dress) and Banana (Bread) Related

I've been knitting away at the Peanut Dresses, and I'm happy to say that the main knitting portion of PD1 is finished. It is without straps and embroidery details as of yet, but at least the body is done. Finally. After a couple trips to the frog pond and back (knitting one's own design, I'm finding, is not without its fair share of difficulty). Here's a little taste:

I am now onto knitting PD2, trying with all of my might to avoid SDS (Second Dress Syndrome). At least all the math is done, and I can simply follow my notes from PD1 to knit PD the second. Should be a cinch, right? Yeah, we'll see. There is always room for user error. I feel compelled to mention that this is the most plain stockinette I've knit in a while. Yes, that's right, a little dress' worth of stitches is the most plain stockinette I've knit in a while. People, I told you I have issues with this, and I wasn't kidding! Luckily, these things are small.

So, to break up the PD monotony, I escaped into a brief baking interlude. There were a couple motivating factors for this, in addition to the wanting to take a break from knitting part: 1) 3 bananas in the fruit bowl on the verge of over-ripening, and 2) The Knitting Cook, which I started listening to recently, which has really gotten me back into the cooking/baking mood. I have two people to thank for this: Julia, for turning me onto this podcast by way of mentioning it here and there over the past however many months, and Faith, for producing such a wonderful podcast. Now that I've figured out how to listen to podcasts easily at work, I've been catching up with a quite a few of them. I am hooked- it definitely adds some fun to the tediousness of the workday. But, I digress. Back to The Knitting Cook- Faith has a lovely personality and does a great job of merging two of my favorite topics - fiber and food - into one charming podcasty package. If you are like-minded, I highly recommend that you check it out, if you haven't already!

So anyway, I decided to rescue the on-the-verge bananas and (not so) magically morph them into a loaf of banana bread. Mmm.

I love baking quick breads, and banana bread is one of my favorites (zucchini bread is another). I have to say, though, that I prefer homemade banana bread often to that which you might find in, say, a coffee shop chain, because I am control the level of sugar. A lot of the time I find, especially with banana bread or muffins, that they are way too sweet for my taste. But, I digress again!

I used my go-to banana bread recipe, which is based on the one in my trusty Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook. (This is also my go-to source for pan gravy instructions at Thanksgiving, but who asked about that.) I modify the recipe a little by using whole wheat flour instead of regular all-purpose flour, and substitute a little more banana for a little less sugar (it's still plenty sweet that way, and if anything, a little more banana-y). And of course, I would never leave out chopped walnuts- I am my mother's daughter, after all. I'm happy to say that it turned out really well, and it's been supplying me and B with breakfast all week.

Okay now- back to PD knitting...