Goin' Bananas

I always feel bad for the over-ripened bananas that are constantly being thrown out around our place week after week. Although we send them off to the compost bin where the worms happily munch them away, I still don't like wasting food. This past Saturday I decided to save a pile of organic bananas that were past their prime. I found the following recipe for a delicious banana bread on Allrecipes.com :

  

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 1/3 cups mashed over ripe bananas

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.                                                                                                                                         

Yield - 1 9x5 inch loaf pan

I adjusted the recipe a little bit with the following: 1 c. light brown sugar (what I had in my cabinet) and  4 med. mashed over ripe bananas. Also, depending on your oven the bread may not need to be baked as long as the directions indicate. I let mine go for 60 minutes and it was a little toasty around the edges, but the flavor was great. I think for the next batch I may add in some walnuts and raisins for more texture.