What to do with those bananas? {Simple Banana Bread}

Buy food that's on its way to the composter? What?! That's exactly what I did yesterday. The local grocery store had a huge bag (~8 lbs) of bananas on quick sale for 99 cents. I grabbed it! 

Most of the time, you'll hear me profess how important the freshest ingredients are to cooking and to eating well. However, in the case of a good banana bread, you will rely on those bananas being a bit past their prime. For the deepest, most delicious banana flavors, you'll need bananas with lots of brown and black freckles. These uber-ripe bananas are a perfect addition to smoothies as well. If you're thinking, "there's no way I can make enough smoothies and banana bread to use up 8 lbs of bananas," there's always the freezer. You can stash your quick sale bananas in the freezer as is (peel and all) for use at a later time - or- peel them, cut them into chunks and freeze them on a tray. Once frozen, put the pieces into a ziplock bag or other freezer container so they are always ready to grab and use in your morning smoothie or pull out enough to defrost and mash for banana bread or muffins. 

I'm not much of a smoothie maker, so when faced with those 8 lbs 2 extra bananas on the counter, that the kids won't dare touch since they are "squishy", it is time to whip up some banana bread that the kids are sure to devour happily. 

Simple Banana Bread 

• 1 2/3 C all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 11/4 C sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 C oil (I used canola - you can use what you prefer)
• 3 1/2 bananas, very ripe, mashed
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Coat a 9x5x3 loaf pan with a bit of oil.
2. Whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon & salt in a medium bowl.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, bananas, vanilla and oil.
4. Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir just until combined. Do not overmix.
5. Scrape prepared batter into the prepared pan .
6. Bake for about 1 hour (until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean)
7. Let bread cool for about 15 min in the pan and then run a knife around edge to loosen; turn bread out onto a rack and let cool completely.

Notes: 

• This batch can also be baked in 3 mini loaves (~6x3 loaf pans); cooking time for the mini size will be right at 40 minutes or so. 
• Store in airtight container at room temp; can be made 3 days in advance.

How do you use up left over bananas? smoothies? bread? muffins? pudding? If you have a great recipe, please share!

Happy Cooking!

 sld

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