Bananas

I hate bananas. I hate them. They make me gag. And they are utterly overpowering and pushy in smoothies.

I do,  however, love banana bread. I love it. With my whole heart.
 I love it so much sometimes I eat it too fast and get the hiccups.

This recipe is from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook. It's the simplest banana bread recipe ever. You don't need a mixer, you only need one bowl, and you can throw almost anything you want into it. Last week I smashed up a dark chocolate bar. This week chocolate chips and walnuts. Last month I made it with only bananas, one time I used whole wheat flour.

 The only thing you want to watch for is that your bananas are actually really ripe. So ripe, that you wouldn't eat them, even if you liked bananas. Ripe, in the sense that they are spotty, and covered with disgusting brown mushy spots.
Once I was inpatient, (I'm impatient a lot, this 'once', refers only to circumstances involving banana bread...) and really wanted to eat banana bread, so I used not completely ripe, still possibly edible bananas. It didn't work so well. The  lack of mushy banana causes the batter to be very thick and it struggle to rise.

SO, be patient. Let your bananas sit around and get gross and mushy.
Then, make banana bread.


Banana Nut Bread

This is pure and simple banana bread, heavy, moist and dark.

3 ripe bananas, well mashed (with a fork)
2 eggs, well beaten
2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup walnuts, or chocolate or anything you think goes.

 Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a loaf pan, (use an 8 x 4ish, sized one). Mix the bananas and eggs together in a large bowl. Stir in the flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Add the walnuts and blend. Put the batter in the pan and bake for 1 hour. Remove from the pan to a rack. Serve warm or cool, or re-heated in the microwave, smothered with butter.
---
This recipe can be easily doubled, if you have two loaf pans. You can throw them side by side in the oven. I almost always double it. It gets eaten so fast at our house, it's worth it.
Also, if you have a multitude of spotty bananas cluttering up your counter space, and no time to make banana bread, you can freeze the bananas in their peels in a Ziploc bag, until you have time to use them. Just defrost them a little, remove the peels and mash normally. They will be a little slimier then usual but do not fear! It will be fine.
That is my promise to you.