Banana Bread Recipe

I love to bake a pretty, fancy-pants cake every now and then. Actually, this lemon curd cake recipe is one of my favorites when I feel like impressing a crowd. For the most part, though, I bake because it makes me feel homey and at ease. So I choose recipes that I've memorized from my Mom's kitchen. Banana bread is one of the easiest and it almost always turns out well.

Beth's Banana Bread
Ingredients
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1/2 cup margarine or butter
3 very ripe bananas (approx 1 cup)
1 tsp baking soda
nuts (optional)

Directions
Sift dry ingredients in a bowl. Set aside.
In another bowl, cream butter and sugar.
Add eggs and banana.
Slowly add dry ingredients.
Pour into a large buttered-and-floured loaf pan
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour (or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean)

Lovely photo and more fun banana facts from Vivien Veil

Side note -- We have been talking and sharing quite a bit this week after our Girl Crush event last weekend. This less personal post is actually considered part of my "Things I'm Afraid to Tell You" list. I have a very quirky habit...I don't (or rarely) eat leftover fruit. Let's say I bring an apple to work but don't eat it that day for lunch, it will sit there until Andie finds it rotting in the fridge. My fruit must be slightly under ripe (perhaps a 4 on the diagram above) and cannot be transplanted from place to place. It's a relatively harmless, although sometimes wasteful, oddity of mine, but it does leave me with lots of bananas at the end of the week. Good thing I have my Mom's recipe!