Nothing gets thrown out in this house, that is as far as food is concerned! Perhaps it's because I am of that generation that was forced to eat everything on the plate because of the poor starving children in China (or was it India?) and look at them now! Those cute starving kids are now eating OUR food and driving the prices insane. After all the sacrifices I made!
For those of you not of a certain age, this must sound ludicrous but that was the sneaky way our parents got us to finish our meals. Nowadays, kids eat in stages. A couple of bites here and there, get up from the table, come back, eat some more...don't get me started on this.
This morning I woke up to 4 over ripe bananas sitting on the kitchen counter, leftovers from last weekend's visit from my grandchildren. I was exhausted from working in the garden but I knew they wouldn't last another day so out came the pots and pans and the Silver Palate cookbook.
It took less than half an hour to throw everything together and now I am delighted for I will have a real treat to serve for breakfast and tea over the long weekend. Which got me thinking....there is nothing I appreciate more as a weekend hostess than having someone show up with homemade treats. Cookies, breads, pies, salads, ANYTHING to alleviate the weekend meal debacle. Of course, a casserole will do fine, but I'll even settle for a jar of homemade jam!
Makes 1 loaf
Ingredients
8 T unsalted butter, room temp
3/4 c granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 c unbleached all-purpose flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 c whole wheat flour
3 large ripe bananas, mashed (1 1/4 cups - 1 1/2 cups) I used 4
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 c walnuts, coarsely chopped (I used 1 cup, love it nutty)
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan.
2. Mix flours, soda, salt together
3. Mash bananas with a fork, add vanilla to the banana mixture.
4. Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time and beat.
5. Alternately add dry and wet ingredients to butter mixture, beginning and ending with the dry (dry-wet-dry-wet-dry)
6. Pour into pan. Bake 50-60 min, or until cake tester comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 min, then on rack. f
Banana bread freezes beautifully. Half my loaf is sitting in the freezer ready for next weekend!
I totally agree with you. If someone arrives with a gift of food they make my day. I usually have some banana bread in the freezer too. So delicious for morning tea with a cup of tea.
ReplyDeleteIf only bananas weren't so expensive here at the moment :-(
I buy bananas for banana bread!! It's great for tea and there is usually a loaf in the freezer -- mine makes two which is nice for there is one to eat NOW and one to either freeze or gift as a gift OR make one big loaf and four smaller ones!!
ReplyDeleteThx for the recipe - I just love it!!!
ReplyDeleteLove
Vivi