Banana Bread

We all have our little quirks, right? Here is one of mine.

I will spend weeks on having a "find just the right (fill in the blank) recipe".


For instance I once spent about two months making a different apple pie recipe every weekend. I wanted to find "just the right one", so I subjected my family to this, weekend after weekend, for about 7 or 8 weeks in a row. (at the same time, my friend Sally was trying to find the perfect rice pudding ). I made apple pies with cinnamon and nutmeg, with a crunch topping, with brown sugar, with nuts... My family never complained. Nor did they when I was trying to find the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. They are troopers I tell ya...troopers, being forced to eat my samples.


The downfall to this is that I have no signature dish that people request me to bring to potlucks, dinner parties, etc.
My friend Shelly makes 3 things. We can always count on one of those three things being brought to a backyard bbq or get-together. But she makes them well, and we all love them. They are her signature dishes...the ones we all crave and rave about.
Me, on the other hand....I will even make a dish I've never made before to take and share. And if someone were to ask me to "bring your apple pie, it's so good," I would have no idea which one they were talking about.


My daughter-in-law Sadie once said to me, that she really liked that thing I made, with noodles.
I've been haunted about that for years.....trying to remember what noodle thing it was. I've made other noodle things for her since then, but have never recreated "the" noodle thing.


For a while I was also trying different banana bread recipes. The trouble is, they are all good, so how does one pick "just the right one"? Well you can't. But I did make one the other night and I thought I would share it.


I was reading this book, "Being Dead is no Excuse, the Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral" by Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays. It's full of funny little essays on Southern etiquette and recipes. In it there was one for banana bread. Now, I don't just make any banana bread I come across anymore, but this one intrigued me because it didn't have any salt in the recipe. I thought salt was one of those "chemical" ingredients you need to do any baking? Well, there was none there. So I decided to make it. And guess what? It was really good.
I would make it again, although I'm still not sure "it's the one."




Mother's Banana Nut Bread

4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons soda
1 cup unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
6 ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups chopped nuts


Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.


Sift the flour, baking powder and soda together.
Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and mix. Add the flour mixture to the butter and sugar and egg mixture.
Fold in the mashed bananas.
Lightly flour the nuts and fold them into the batter.


Bake for 1 hour in 2 buttered Loaf pans. Glaze if desired.


Glaze
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons butter, softened
4-6 tablespoons milk
In a small bowl, blend the above ingredients until smooth. Remove the bread from the pan and spoon the glaze over it.