Banana Bread

I'm sure you've had times where there have been a few stray bananas on the verge of going over-ripe on your counter. I'm very guilty of doing that, and many a times you'll find a sorry, shriveled looking apple or orange at the bottom of my fruit basket. I have yet to figure out to do with those guys. This is a super fast recipe for home made banana bread. I think I can do all the prep work in less than 10min now. I will usually toss in a cup of chocolate chips, esp the mini ones, and whatever nuts I have in the cabinet. As you can see, sliced almonds made it into today's loaf, and they add a wonderful crunch. I obtained this recipe from Rachel's sister Dana and have not looked for another recipe since.

Ingredients:

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp baking soda

1 ½ cups flour

pinch of salt

3 ripe bananas

(optional: ½ cup nuts or about 1cup semi-sweet chocolate chips)

Directions:

Preheat Oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a loaf pan with butter.

Cream butter and sugar together with an electric mixer.

Add eggs to butter and sugar mixture.

In a separate bowl, combine flour and salt.

In another bowl cream bananas and baking soda with an electric mixer.

Alternating, add mixed bananas and flour/salt mixture into the butter, sugar and eggs.

(Stir in nuts or chips)

Pour into the greased loaf pan.

Bake at 350 until a toothpick inserted is clean when pulled out (about 40min)

Let cool before removing from pan and cutting.

Enjoy!

Alternately, you can fill muffin cups and sprinkle with coarse sugar (you know, that sugar in the raw stuff. I admit I may have bought coffee at Starbucks once or twice just to grab some extra packets for making muffins) on top.