In Honor of a Snow Day

Yup, we have ice.  Not as bad as I thought it would be, but enough to call off school for the day - AGAIN!  Princess Maren may actually get to celebrate her birthday (7/4) in school this year at the rate we are going.  Oh well.

Snow days call for baking.  It's a rule. Since I am on a diet new eating plan, didn't think I'd better break those rules and tempt myself by baking and therefore eating in abundance whatever I happened to bake.  I actually took the pictures in the fall for this post.  So, if I think back really hard and take a big snifffffffff, ahhhh, I can almost smell that banana bread.

Banana bread.  Food of the gods, according to Marissa. She has never met a banana bread she didn't like.  Course she was raised on the best.  And that would be my Grandma's banana bread in my humble opinion.  I can only aspire to make banana bread as good as hers.  She gets it just right every time.  Mom's is pretty darn good too.  Marissa's official ranking is Grandma Gigi's, Grandma's and mine is a lowly third place.  But I do consider myself to be in pretty good company.

This is the cookbook my mom gave me for Christmas one year.  It has many of our family favorites in it.  I keep it in the box because I have a slew of recipies I have ripped out of magazines and such that I have collected over the years just running amok in the box too.  I am so organized like that.  Sigh.

So Mom wrote out the recipes for me.  That in itself is something to treasure.  Who writes out recipes anymore? She then attempted to catagorize them appropriately.   So you look for the banana bread recipe under this tab...

 

Of course you do.  Did I tell you I got all my organizational skills from my mom?  Actually,  she is not far off at all.  In our family, bread IS a dessert.  I'm not moving it to the correct spot.  I like it that way.  Besides then I would have to move the pancake recipe out of the bread tab and put it under breakfast foods.  Not moving that one either.

Here's the recipe.  I was thinking about re-typing it, but this works. Grandma puts a little different spin on it, but I will show you that later.

I only had two bananas at the time.  It worked just fine.

Mashed up nanners.  Take out all your frustration and smush 'em good.

Soured milk. See the curdle?  I guess you could use buttermilk too, but why?

Just throw it all together wily nilly. I never listen to those recipes that say to measure out the dry ingredients and then incorporate the rest.  There's probably a reason for it, but I am too lazy to want to know why, or to actually do it.

Then just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it.  No one wants to be defeated.  Whoops - snuck a little Micheal in on you there, didn't I?

Now this is my Grandma's twist on things.  She bakes her banana bread in cans.  And after many attempts with the crust too brown and the middle still a little under done when using a loaf pan,  this is what I do too.  It works great! These are two of the larger size cans (20 ounce, I think) and they work perfectly to split one batch of banana bread.  Be sure not to fill them too full, because they tend to rise and bubble up and over the top.   Not that that has ever happened to me. Ever.

Then stick them in the oven for an hour and let the smell waft through your home.  Now you have 60 minutes to go outside and take pictures of your dog.

We call this one"Under the Underbite" - Part I.

  Under the Underbite - Part II. 

Wow! We actually did have a lawn and green grass at one time. Wherefore art thou, lawn?

And then when you come back in the house you should have this.

Aren't they cute?  And they make a really nice gift too.  Wrap them up in some plastic wrap, tie a bow on it and tell your neighbor thanks for scooping your driveway.

I barely got this picture taken before Sweet Marissa descended upon her prey.

She said it was good, but still not as good as Grandma Gigi's.  Traitor.  What can I say, she knows her banana bread.