My girls used to eat bananas like nobody’s business. They would consume them with such a hunger, that an onlooker would think they were staving, or that the banana they were inhaling, was their last meal. Back then, they ate at least one banana, and most often two banana’s for breakfast, then they had a second, and sometimes a third breakfast, of crispy egg, or steel cut oatmeal.

I used to purchase tons of bananas, with the hope that at the end of the week, we would have at least two or three, perfectly ripe bananas left hanging.  My food dream, was to make banana bread, banana smoothies, banana pancakes, banana oat cookies, or another one of our favorite banana baked goods. Alas, sadly most weeks, I had to make special trips to the store to purchase already ripe bananas. I was always surprised to find these spotty bananas always marked down a bit.

These days, we usually have two to three ripe bananas in our hanging basket, on any given week. My girls don’t eat bananas every day anymore, even though we talk frequently about eating our fruits and vegetables rainbow every day, go figure.

My  family is thrilled when I turn those spotty ugly duckling bananas into something swan like, beautiful and delicious(we have been reading the ugly duckling a lot lately). It was a chilly day today and I was craving banana bread. I have been making The Fanny Farmer Cookbook banana nut bread recipe for years, since my four year old was one(she could finally have egg whites). I usually make the recipe as it is written(I will include original recipe below), but sometimes I deviate from the recipe and omit walnuts, or add nut butter, vanilla extract, beet sugar, brown sugar, chocolate chips, shredded unsweetened coconut, and/or dried cranberries.

I have been a little obsessed with our local honey from Heavenly Honey Farm and Blackstrap molasses lately, and this is the second time I have made this moist, dark, scrumptious, banana bread. My family gave this version high marks, both times. We are going to eat the remaining slices for second breakfast tomorrow, toasted with a smear of cream cheese, because that’s the way we roll.

Banana Nut Bread, The Fanny Farmer Cookbook

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 ripe bananas, well beaten
• 2 large eggs, well beaten
• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a loaf pan. Mix the bananas and eggs together in a large bowl. Stir in the flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Add the walnuts and blend. Put the batter in the pan and bake for 1 hour. Remove from the pan to a rack. Serve still warm or cooled, as you like it.

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