The New Year has nothing to do with this...
... but, yes, I'm noticing a pattern. Full throttle with the blog while I was freelancing, one lonely blog suspiciously dated January 2010 (a delicious dish though!) and a noticeable decline once I started working full-time. Oh dreadfulness! This year... for sure. A determination to do more on this here blog. So. Here we go.
I bought a couple of bananas a couple of weeks ago. I don't eat a lot of bananas, but these bananas were made in Colombia and I have a definite affinity for Colombia, an attachment to that beautiful but troubled country, and so I thought, I'm going to buy these bananas and I'm going to support this country, even though, who knows who gets what profits there. Aye. Complicado.
In any event, a couple of weeks later, and these same bananas are almost completely blackened and I know I'm not going to eat them as they are. However. I have a great back-up plan. Banana Bread. And not just any Banana Bread -- Lynda Schroeder's banana bread. Who is Lynda Schroeder you may ask? Well, she is a former colleague of mine, and she makes the most delicious banana bread, which I was first introduced to when we both worked together at Air America Radio. It's yummy, with chocolate chips, and, yes, it's an easy one too. I must admit that before I made it the first time, I had to buy a loaf pan but that turned out to be a sound investment, and, from this Christmas with family, I have another delicious bread to try, courtesy of none other than my Aunt Lucy, and which I'll definitely post here too...
All right. The recipe is as follows:
1/2 cup butter (1 stick if you use sticks. I use Kerrygold Irish Butter -- the best tasting butter in the world :)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup white flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt (not sure I used that much)
1 & 1/4 cups of mashed ripe bananas (2 large or 3 small bananas -- my bananas, in hindsight, probably a little small)
1/4 cup plain yogurt
The recipe says that walnuts or chocolate chips are optional. Well. I guess that's true, but chocolate chips, of which I used a mere half a cup this time around, (and will definitely push up to 3/4 cup next time around), compliment the banana bread so very well, it would be a shame (hell a travesty!) to leave them out.
pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F
Sift together the whole wheat flour, white flour, baking soda and salt
Combine the bananas and yogurt, stirring just enough to mix
Cream butter and sugar until light and creamy. Beat in eggs
Add dry ingredients alternately with banana mixture to butter, sugar and eggs, just enough to combine well
Turn into buttered 5x9 loaf pan
Bake 50-60 minutes or until done. (If you have toothpicks you can use those to test the loaf at around about 50 minutes. Anything sticks to the toothpick and it needs a few more minutes.)
Cool in pan for about 10 minutes. Remove from pan and finish cooling on a rack. (If you don't have a rack, improvise... something to create a little air under the loaf)..
It's a fun one... I enjoyed making it. Felt a little like a builder, alternating the flour mixture with the yoghurt banana mixture. But yes, far more tasty than cement mix I promise.
PS. If you want to do two loafs, simply double the recipe.