Banana Bread

We always buy a bunch of bananas to include in the lunch bag for work. Sometimes, though, other fruits get selected for lunch instead.  After a number of days, those slightly green bananas are now spotted, brown, and tired. This recipe is for those bananas. If you have at least 3 over-ripe bananas then you should be thinking about bread instead of tossing them.

I was recently in that position with 5 bananas going brown on me. So I turned to my basic banana bread recipe.

The best thing about banana bread is that it's meant to be shared. I like to use a mini-loaf pan (like this one) because there is usually no waste involved. They are the perfect size to share with co-workers or neighbors without overwhelming them. Plus, I think the small size keeps it from drying out.

This is a basic recipe and it's a good one to try out with your own personal variations. Some links below give some additional ideas.

Banana Bread

Ingredients:

• 3-5 bananas (over-ripe with some browning on the peel)
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 3/4 brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• pinch salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• pinch cloves
• 1 1/2 cup flour

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350
• In a large bowl, smash peeled bananas into chunks
• Add butter and continue to mash
• Add seasonings, vanilla, sugar, eggs, and baking soda mix together
• Add flour and mix
• Ladle the batter into your bread pans
• Cooking time will depend on the loaf pan size. I used a pan with 8 mini-loaves and it was about 45 minutes. Larger loaf pans make take 50 minutes or more. Use a toothpick to test for doneness (it should come out clean).
• When done, remove from oven and let cool

Inspiration:

Smitten Kitchen's Banana Bread

Simply Recipes Banana Bread

Food Network's Banana Bread

Apple Pie Filling

My posts a few years ago had me troubled about my new apple tree. In its first few years it did not produce a whole lot of fruit. Maybe I was not giving it proper care or maybe it just needed a few years to mature. I'm not sure but this year I got a viable crop of apples. The coloring on the peel was still not what I expected but below the peel all was tasty.

A few weekends ago I harvested a shopping bag full of apples. In an earlier post, I had thought that I'd turn all my apples into canned applesauce, but some internet research got me interested in canned apple pie filling. I used most of my apple crop to make the 3 + quarts of apple pie filling. The rest will become applesauce. I was able to take some of the overflow apple pie filling to work with some yogurt the next day and it was quite tasty.

I won't go into the recipe here. Instead, I will just link you to the informative recipe I more or less followed.