When I moved out to LA all on my lonesome after I graduated college, my mom gave me the best present possible: a spiral-bound notebook filled with her (and my aunts’, and my grandma’s, and my great-grandma’s) recipes, complete with many blank pages for me to fill in myself. In the coming months, I look forward to sharing these recipes with you, and I just have to say…what a gift it is to be able to pass on such treasured memories.
Here’s one of many to come. Please enjoy, and pass on to others you love.
MOM’S BANANA BREAD
Preheat oven to 350F. Butter and flour a bread pan (or use PAM and flour, like me).
In a large bowl, cream 1/2 cup butter and 1 cup sugar. Mix in two eggs (one at a time).
In a separate bowl, sift together 2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking soda, and 1/2 tsp salt.
In yet another bowl (yes, I know, I don’t have a dishwasher either), mash up 3 very ripe bananas (I just use my hands, but a blender or a potato masher works too).
Gradually stir the sifted dry ingredients into the butter/sugar/eggs, and then mix in the mashed bananas. Add 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts, if you like.
Bake at 350F for 1 hr (or until a toothpick comes out clean; our oven took an hour fifteen, and almost blew my head off because you have to light it with a match. You can see what a cutting-edge appliance I’m working with in the picture above).
