Monkey's Love Language

Today my son walks into my bedroom. He starts to tell me about some choice bananas that are all speckly. We also had the perfect amount to make some Banana Bread! He was giving me those sweet big eyes, and begging so nicely...How could I say no?

He runs out, and begins to announce loudly, "Mama love me! Mama loves me! MAMA LOVES ME!!!!!"

I guess I am baking some banana bread today. ::Big Grin:: Because I do totally love him!

What's that you say? What recipe will I be using? Well, I will tell you.

This is a great recipe from my friend Liz. Liz and I used to live in the same apartment complex when we were first married. Her husband was a med student. They were only going to be in our area a few years, then it was off to the wild blue yonder. I am so glad that she was brought in my life. We had so many days of hanging out as newlyweds, and as first time parents. She made fabulous dessert. She introduced me to the wonderful world of the KitchenAid mixer. In our group of friends, she was famous for her cookies, and banana bread. I think it is a basic recipe, but coming from Liz, it was just fantastic. She had a special touch. So, without further ado, here is the famous Liz Banana Bread.

1/2 cup Butter
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1/4 cup chopped nuts
1 cup sugar
3 bananas mashed
1 teaspoon soda
1/8 teaspoon salt

Combine all. Beat until smooth. Pour into prepared loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes to 1 hour. Makes 1 loaf

I usually make muffins, because some of my family is weird and they don't like nuts. So we do half with and half without. Also, they are done faster. Yummy!

Peaches - How I Loathe Thee!

So, we had that really fun excursion to the peach orchard. We spent a good hour in line, to get some under ripe peaches that were all damaged and a bucket of "good" ones. Well, they have been a nightmare. I tried to leave the so called "over ripes" covered with a towel to let them ripen. They started to rot. FANTASTIC!

So then I cut off all the yucky parts, and went ahead and cut up and froze the good parts. GROSS! All while being queasy due to wonderful all day morning sickness.

Then today, I thought the "good" ones should be ready. Well for some reason, they all shrunk. Some aren't all the way ripe. And the ones that are ripe, are ok. So, that is not a total waste. So I have 5 peaches left that hopefully will ripen into a delicious peach for snacking. The others are all in the freezer.

I don't think we will be doing peaches next year....something just tells me we won't.

The Most FABULOUS Bread

My friend Wendy, who is FABULOUS!, gave me this FABULOUS Bread recipe. I will share it with all of you, my FABULOUS blog friends.

Fabulous Bread
2 1/2 C. Water
2 Tbls. Yeast
3 Tbls. Sugar
1 Tbls. Salt
1/3 C. Oil
6 C. Flour

Mix water and yeast, allow to sit a few minutes. Add remaining ingredients and let your mixer knead the dough until it is a soft dough. Let it rise in mixer. Punch down every 10 minutes by turning on the mixer. Do this 4-5 times.

Divide into 4 equal parts. Roll each quarter into a large rectangle and roll up starting from a long side. Place on greased baking sheet sprinkled with corn meal seam side down. With a sharp knife, cut slits into the loaves. Let rise until double in size, about 30 minutes.

Bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes. Brush the crust with butter as soon as it comes out of the oven.

A few notes from me:
Mine never takes that long. It usually takes 15-20 minutes.
I sometimes have to add more flour. Even up to a cup more.
I make this in my KitchenAid mixer. You can adjust if you don't use one.