Banana Bread

I do believe my family conspires against me when it comes to bananas. When I buy bananas, they have to be green just turning yellow. If I buy a small bunch, the kids gobble them up in two days and beg for more. If I buy a large bunch, the bananas sit and nobody touches them. If there are more than five black spots them, the kids will not eat them.

 Instead of letting the bananas go to waste, I freeze them with the peels on. Four bananas to a bag, will give the right amount for banana bread. When I am ready to bake bread, I remove the bag from the freezer. I defrost the bag by leaving it sit on the counter. If I am thinking ahead, I will defrost the bag in the refrigerator for three days. I have found I get the best banana flavor, doing it this way.  

The banana peels will be black and the fruit will be watery. This is what you want! I hold the banana by the top and squeeze out the fruit into the bag. Discard the peels; pour banana liquid directly into the recipe mixture when needed.

The recipe I use, the bread tends to go dark. There are times; I have thought I have burnt the bread. I have also found using real butter will make the bread darker. You can use margarine of your choice; I have found the brand I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, gives me the lightest color and would suggest using it.

If you are a fan of Starbucks Banana Bread, you will find this a close match. About five years ago, Starbucks gave out their banana bread recipe to customers. I made both for the family and they choose this recipe for the favorite.

You can top the bread with walnuts or shelled pumpkin seeds if you choose, before baking. If you like chocolate chips, dried cranberries or walnuts baked into your bread, I would suggest adding no more than a half cup.

Ingredients:

2 ½ cup all purpose flour

2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup margarine

2 cups white sugar

2 cups mashed bananas – (four bananas)

4 eggs

1 teaspoon nutmeg

Directions:

Preheat oven 350°F

Prepare pan either by grease and flour,  if making muffins use paper cups

Combine sugar, margarine, eggs and bananas in large mixing bowl, until well blended

Stir in baking soda, and nutmeg

Add flour in ½ cup portions, until completely blended

Pour into prepared pans.

Bake:

2 Large loaf pans, 60-65 minutes

18 Muffins, 25 minutes

24 mini muffins, 15-17 minutes

4 mini loaf pans 40-45 minutes

Check for doneness, by checking with a wood tooth pick

Cool for 5-10 minutes before removing from pan.

Spiced Coffee

It is no secret I have a love hate relationship with coffee. Growing up, my bedroom was closest to the kitchen. My parents loved to grind their own coffee beans, before grinding your own was fashionable. Every morning I woke to beans being poured into the antique crank coffee grinder. The grinding seemed to take hours in "kid" time, in actuality it took no longer than five minutes.

I took my first job when I was a junior in high school and for Christmas, I thought I would get my parents something special without saying "Hey can I have money to go Christmas shopping?" Poking around Sun Valley Mall, I came across Williams Sonoma. My mom loved to shop this store for all of her gourmet club meetings. I had my "A Christmas Story" moment when there in the window was a Braun electric coffee grinder! Electric had to be quicker method of getting those dang beans ground so I could sleep, right?

Christmas morning came with happy parents laughing I did not like the hand grinder and bought them an electric one. There I sat smiling ear to ear, because on December 26, I was going to sleep in past six! I woke the next morning to a sound, which could be compared to a locomotive running wide open, the steam whistle blowing while chugging through a convent! Did I mention I hate coffee?

For me to drink coffee it has to be 60% dairy, 30% sugar, and 10% coffee. I have to kill the taste of the coffee somehow. I still do not understand how something that smells so wonderful, tastes so bad!

When my husband was stationed in Texas, I worked in a county probation department. Where I became friends with Terra. Even though, we were born one day and at least fifteen years apart we clicked like we had known each other for years. For our birthdays, we would bring each other a Starbucks Venti Carmel Frappuccino. One day Terra let me try her coffee with cinnamon in it, hmm not too bad... but I still needed it fully loaded with sugar and milk.

Yesterday morning after enjoying a slice of Pumpkin Bread, I decided to try something. I had made an 8-cup pot of coffee earlier, (I told you I love the smell of coffee.) I threw out the coffee filter and grounds, then added a fresh filter to the basket. To the basket, I added 1 teaspoon of nutmeg, cinnamon, and ground cloves (I would suggest cutting the cloves back to half a teaspoon.) I also added something I knew would not work but I tried it anyway. I added 1/2 cup of white sugar into the mixture. Next I poured the coffee from the carafe back into the coffee maker and re-brewed it (I can see my dad saying here "oh yuck." Nevertheless, in reality I did not re-brew the coffee since it did not go through the grounds again.) The sugar did not work that well, since it would not dissolve quick enough to make it through the filter without me having to stir it.

Minus the sugar mess, the coffee came out tasting wonderful. The spices gave it a warm rich taste that made me think of winter. I would pair it with the Pumpkin Bread Recipe or even Gingerbread during the holidays for something extra special.

 

The Panic of The Lost Pumpkin Bread Recipe

I have a stack of recipes that are loose and unbound. They are either hand written, or printed from the internet and emails. When I want a recipe, I pull out the stack and start shifting through it. I am the only person in the house who can touch the stack. I know exactly where  a recipe should be and they should never get out of “my” order.

Huge panic erupts when I cannot find a recipe. The thought or idea that I have lost or miss placed a recipe is devastating. Yes, yes, yes, I know, I should have a better system for keeping recipes, but I am a procrastinator and a creature of disorganized chaos.

Two weeks ago, I made pumpkin bread. This weekend I went looking for the recipe and it was nowhere to found. I went through the stack of recipes twice and could not find it. My over active imagination started churning with the “what if’s.” What if it got thrown away when my husband cleaned the kitchen? Did Lily, our paper-shredding cat, get her paws on it? Was it mistaken as scratch paper and used by the kids for math homework? Gasp!

Lily, A.K.A. The Paper Shredder

  So panic with setting in, I start pulling cookbooks out of my cabinet and riffling through them. This is one of those recipes, I do not need to read what is on the paper; it is burned in my memory. Though without the paper in my hand, I cannot remember any of it besides canned pumpkin.

 After emptying the cabinet, the recipe is nowhere to found. My kitchen is a disaster, and Lily was stalking recipes that have fallen on the floor. Dejected I sit down at my computer, only to look over at the printer. Yep, sitting on top of the printer is my recipe for pumpkin bread. I placed it there to scan into the computer, in case I ever lost the paper copy.



Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:

1 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 16 oz can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie)

3 cups of all purpose flour
3 cups of sugar
1 teaspoon of ground cloves

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

2 teaspoons of ground nutmeg (if you have the time, grind it fresh)

1 teaspoon of baking soda

½ teaspoon of baking powder

** Optional you can add either add 1 cup chopped walnuts or pumpkin seeds**

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350° F. Prepare two 9X5X3 inch loaf pans by buttering and flouring.

In large bowl beat sugar and oil until blended. Mix in eggs and pumpkin.

In separate bowl sift remaining dry ingredients, and then slowly stir into pumpkin mixture.

Divide batter between the prepared pans, sprinkle with nuts and bake for 70 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Cool on wire racks.

This recipe can be used to make one dozen pumpkin muffins, prepare tins as above or use cupcake papers. Bake for 20 minutes, insert toothpick to check doneness