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After an extended weekend away, I came home to find myself left with an abundant amount of fresh organic ginger, overripe organic bananas, and half a crate full of clementines.

It must be said that ginger is God's gift to a recipe.

First thought to handle this situation, rather than having the foods go to waste, was to make banana bread! I added cinnamon and, of course, ginger to give it quite a fantastic flavor.

Cinnamon Ginger Banana Bread

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3 cups overripe bananas, mashed
  
• 1 1/2 cut of ginger, minced
• 3 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven 350 degrees. Grease 9x5 loaf pan.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs, ginger, and bananas to butter mix. Add banana mix to flour mix. Stir just enough to moisten flour. Pour batter into pan.

Bake for 60-65 minutes. Let bread cool for 10 minutes after baking. Get a glass of milk and enjoy a slice!

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The extra clementines and remaining ginger ended up lending themselves to the most delicious glaze.

Ginger-Clementine Glazed Chicken

• 4 boneless chicken breast, sliced into smaller cuts
  
• all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 4 teaspoons ginger, minced
  
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• 2 cups clementine juice
• 2 teaspoons clementine peel, grated

(You could easily use oranges or orange juice with this recipe, I simply chose to hand-squeeze clementines.)

Salt and pepper chicken, dust with flour. Melt butter in oil in large skiller over medium-high. Saute chicken until brown. Remove, place aside.

Add ginger to skillet, stir one minute. Add brown sugar and mustard to blend into drippings. Add juice and peel. Simmer until reduced, around 8 minutes.

Return chicken to skillet. Cover chicken with sauce until mixture has a thick glaze consistency.

Remove, serve with noodles or rice.