Brown Butter Banana Strawberry Bread

Can I tell you something about me?  This has exactly nothing to do with bananas or butter or bread.  Feel free to roll your eyes and skip ahead, if necessary.

I used to be a worrier.  Like… a professional worrier.  I would worry like it was my job to worry, like I was getting paid mad/crazy/rich person dollars to worry.  I wasn’t.  I was broke.  That fact, in itself, made me worry.

I thought that worry would save me from every possible pain in the world.  I thought worry would prepare me for bad things, disappointing things, and crazy unforeseeable things.  If I worried about it… it either wouldn’t happen or I’d be prepared for it.

Well… let me tell you:  worry is no preparation.  It took me years.. YEARS, people…. years, to figure out that worry is just wasted energy.

Let’s be real.  I still worry about things.  It’s human nature.  We have big brains… I’m pretty sure a small portion of them are built to worry.

I worry about earthquakes in the middle of the night when I’m wearing no bra, my ugliest possible t-shirt, and the most embarrassing pair of panties a girl has ever owned.  What if there’s an earthquake, and my house falls down, and I have to retreat to my neighbors house in this hideous outfit?  Those thoughts usually lead me to find a reasonable pair of pajama pants and I slip on a sports bra.  See?  Worrier.

But I’m changed my expectations.  Instead of worry about the worst, I try to expect the best.

Seriously… what would my day look like if I expected great things instead of disastrous things?  I’ll tell you… it’s looks a heck of a lot better.  It feels better too.  I can drink more coffee without completely spazzing out.  Less worry frees me up to jump around in the world, and be silly, and thankful, and wear mint green nail polish, and write pen pal letters, and tell people I love them.

I still worry about earthquakes.  Those are scary.  But I also expect and welcome not just the good… but the great.

(What?  Wait… I’m not talking about trashy reality television?  No.  I know.  It’s weird.)

Do you remember when the strawberry/banana combo really hit its stride?  I think it was some time in the mid 90’s… in the Snapple era, that the strawberry/banana craze really got going.  I blame smoothies.

But… well, there’s something undeniably good going on here.

Let’s not fight it.

Wait.  Remember the Snapple lady?  That whole thing was always weird, right?

Let’s get down to the real deal.  Bread.

This is banana bread.  This is banana bread made exactly 17.845 times more delicious with the addition of browned butter and finely diced strawberries.

Brown butter adds depth, nuttiness, and downright deliciousness.  The strawberries help this banana bread feel pretty and celebrate the season.  The bread is much more banana flavored than strawberry flavored, but the bits of strawberry add sweet little surprise strawberry flavor bits.  I especially love how the strawberries on top get roasted during baking.  Slice them super thin so they don’t weigh down the rise of the bread or get too watery.

Sweet bread.  It’s comforting, simple, and delicious.  If you wanted to slather a warm slice with butter or cream cheese… we’ll, I’d consider you a friend.

I can’t cook without these shoes.  It’s just a thing I have.

And in completely unrelated news… these sunglasses look uh-mazing on Alison.  Major.