Brown Bananas? Yuck!

I try to keep as much fruit in my house as humanly possible because I simply cannot get enough of it. Especially bananas. I know a lot of people don't like them--don't ask me why--but I adore them. However, I have this quick I inherited from my Mama where I will not eat a banana unless it has reached a peak of perfection: solid yellow peel, even a litte green at the top, firm, no bruises and certainly not mushy.

Mushy bananas = death.

I'm serious about this. I do not joke around when it comes to bananas.
However, as it often happens, I buy more bananas than I can consume in a short period of time. My fiance does not eat them, and even if I eat two a day, sometimes they end up looking like this:

Such was the case last week with this particular bunch of fruit. I was especially unhappy because they went from dark green, to light green, to this. They never even touched the golden stage!

So what do you do when you have mushy, over-ripe bananas?

Make banana bread, of course! 

My future mother-in-law gave me the best banana bread recipe ever, which is what I turned this sad things into:

We put walnuts in our banana bread, but it's possible to omit them completely, or trade them out for pecans, raisins, seeds of some kind, or even chocolate chips if you are so inclined. As pictured above, I did make a double batch. However, my bread came out a little drier than usual. Here's the secret: if you double your batch (or if you use small bananas) throw in an extra one. All it does it make it more moist. 

Unfortunately, because I didn't ask my mother-in-law's permission, I'm not going to post her recipe for you all. But I've googled "banana bread recipes," and I believe thousands pop up. Any of them will serve your purpose of getting rid of nasty bananas.

Happy baking!