More Beautiful Weather, Belize-Perfect Banana Bread and The Island’s Best Burger Confirmed

Yesterday was a gorgeous day (as is today) but I’m going to start out with the MOST perfect recipe that is so totally Belize.  Double Chocolate Banana Bread from Smitten Kitchen.  I was turned on to Deb’s blog The Smitten Kitchen about a year ago.  She is married to a high school classmate of mine and she is inspiring, funny, a gorgeous food photographer and just easy to follow.  Very important for the person who turns on her oven just a few times a year.

A few days ago I spotted this recipe and knew it was time to fire that hearth up.  Bananas?  After visiting the banana farm outside of Placencia, I am almost an expert.  And chocolate is grown in Belize (mostly southern Belize) and amazing cocoa powder and chocolate is made right here in San Pedro by my friends at Kakaw chocolate factory and town’s uber-popular Belize Chocolate Boutique.

See?  Here’s the powder which made this bread (but really a cake/brownie) DELICIOUS.

This stuff is WAY simple to make, uses 3 big (or 4 small) old bananas…

Belizean brown sugar.  Another VERY Belizean product straight out of Sugar City, Orange Walk, Belize.

 

And about 1/3 of the bag of Kakaw DARK DARK delicious cocoa powder and one box of this bitter sweet chocolate, pounded with a can into chocolate shards.

The pre-cooked and then finished bread is hardly a bread.  More like a dark chocolately banana brownie.   A whole loaf of it.  IT IS DELICIOUS.  Not too sweet and so so moist.

 

Deb at Smitten Kitchen KNOWS what she is doing.  Tailor made for Belize and DELICIOUS…make this cake.  Immediately.  SUPER EASY.  You just need to wait for it to bake.  I under cooked it a bit for fear of burning (and having it in the over for 60 minutes made me nervous) but it’s still damn good.  And take a look at her site.  It’s amazing.  I’m smitten with Double Chocolate Belize Banana Bread.

 

And now some beach pictures from yesterday afternoon…

The new seawall at Banyan Bay is being filled.

Banyan Bay.

 

Barracuda on!  And this guy is standing in what…8 inches of water?

And now random topic #3…I went to a party last night at DJ’s Seaside Restaurant and can confirm that their burger REMAINS the best in San Pedro.  The bun, the meat, the sauce…all together, it’s simple and absolutely, ridiculously delicious.

And the sweet potato fries with chipotle aioli are SO good too.  Even the Cobb salad that my friend was eating looked delicious.

Now…get to making that banana bread.  Everything will be better…I promise.