My hubby loves bananas, but he won't eat them once they start to spot and get a little softer. We always buy them when they're still green. So with Thanksgiving just behind us, we had a lot of food. I cooked a whole turkey and sides for just my hubby and I. The bananas that we bought were overlooked and three of them were allowed to get spotty and soft.
The best thing to do with soft bananas is to make banana bread. I've never made banana bread with chocolate chips before, but it sounded like a good idea.
Banana Bread (With Dark Chocolate Morsels)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup chocolate chips
2 Tbsp cinnamon sugar
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add mashed bananas, eggs and vanilla. Mix well. In a separate bowl, sift together dry ingredients and slowly add to banana mixture and mix well. Fold in chocolate chips, if using. You can substitute walnuts as well. Pour batter into lightly greased loaf pan (9"x5"-ish). Sprinkle the top with the cinnamon sugar. Bake at 350 for approximately 45 minutes. The top should spring back when lightly touched.
I pulled this out of the oven and let it sit for about 5 minutes in the pan, then I turned it out over the sink (so that the loose sugar didn't make a mess) and let it cool on a wire rack for about 5 more minutes. At that point, I couldn't wait to try it any longer. It was delicious. It wasn't as sweet as I thought it would be with all the sugar that was in and on it.
I should be getting more creative with food again and you should be hearing from me a little more often.
Happy Eating
