More Summertime Easy Livin'

Too many too-ripe bananas so it was time for banana bread--my grandmother's recipe and my grandmother's cooling rack. 

Once it was in the oven, I realized I'd misread the recipe and put in twice as much banana as was called for. Oddly enough, it turned out just fine--and perhaps closer to the original that I remember. I always wondered why my banana bread wasn't quite as good as hers.

Then it was time to deal with the cucumbers. These are the pickling cukes, salted and resting under ice while I made an equally large bowl of cucumbers in sour cream using the long  thin Oriental cukes.

I haven't made pickles in a while and I'd forgotten how satisfying the little dance of filling the hot jars is: lift from the hot water and empty the jar; set in in a bowl with a little hot water in the bottom; fill with hot pickles and juice; wipe rim; retrieve lid and ring from hot water and screw down on filled jar; return filled jar to large kettle; repeat.

I first made bread and butter pickles over forty years ago, under the tutelage of my dear neighbor Louise Freeman. I still enjoy the pleasure of setting out the processed jars and listening for the tiny ping that says they've sealed.

Ba's Banana Bread -repost

This is what you do with those bananas that have gotten too ripe. Banana bread was one of my dearly loved maternal grandmother's standards and when I make it, it's always a memory trip. I have the recipe in Ba's lovely spiky handwriting and I have her little wire racks to turn the loaves out on to cool. The smell fills the house and I'm ten years old again, a tall skinny little girl who didn't hesitate to butter a slice of the still-warm banana bread.

Some household acts are more than just cooking or cleaning -- some are sacraments.



Ba’s Banana Bread

Really more of a cake than a bread, it's dense and moist and sweet. Excellent toasted with butter, delicious cold and spread with cream cheese, just fine all by itself.

Makes two loaves (freezes well)
2 sticks (1/2 pound) butter
2 c. sugar
4 eggs, beaten
2 c. ripe bananas, mashed well (3 large bananas = 2 c.)
2 tsp. baking soda, stirred into the mashed bananas
3 1/2 c. sifted flour (sift before measuring)
1 tsp. salt, sifted with the flour

Prepare your loaf tins by greasing well (more butter) and cutting a piece of waxed paper to cover the bottom of the pan. Lay it in the greased pan and grease the top of the paper too.

Preheat oven to 325.

Cream together the butter and sugar. When well blended, stir in the beaten eggs. Mix well, add bananas and flour alternately till you have a well blended batter. Do not over-mix. Pour into loaf tins and bake at 325 for about an hour. A knife or bamboo skewer poked into the middle of a loaf should come out clean.

Turn out of loaf pans, peel off waxed paper, and let cool on a rack.