Laurin said I should start a food blog. I thought that was a great compliment. I love talking about food and getting in the kitchen and tinkering with new recipes. I was recently in hospital for 6 days having had emergency surgery and while I was there I was on a clear liquid diet. I lost 7 pounds, but other than that lovely bonus, not being able to enjoy food is one of the worst tortures about being confined to a hospital room.

I have low potassium so we bought more bananas than I could eat or make smoothies with on our supermarket stock up when I was discharged on Thursday. A pile of overripe bananas just beg to be made into a succulent banana cake. I have a favorite banana bread recipe, but I decided to jazz it up a bit.

Cranberry Walnut Vanilla Spiced Banana Cake

Basic Banana Bread:

2 cups AP flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 eggs beaten

1 stick unsalted butter

1/2 cup brown sugar (I mixed dark and light)

2-3 cups mashed overripe bananas

Additions:

1 tablespoon best quality vanilla extract

1 package cranberry walnut snack mix from Trader Joes (about 1 cup) tossed in 1 teaspoon flour

1 teaspoon best quality ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Whisk together flour, soda, salt and spices. Cream together brown sugar and butter until fluffy. Beat egg and with vanilla and mix into the butter and sugar mixture. Stir in bananas. Mix into dry ingredients to moisten and then stir in the cranberry and walnuts. Pour into a prepared round cake or loaf pan. Bake cake pan for 45 minutes at 350 or loaf pan for 60-65 minutes. Let cool if you can stand the wait and then devour.