Monday Night Baking

Monday night was delightfully spent at Debbie's home, where Marta, Megan, Debbie and I baked banana bread* and zucchini bread. Not to brag, but my banana bread recipe is so good that I have had boyfriends list it as one of the best things about me. I will share it with you, and you can be the judge:

Banana Bread
1/4 cup Crisco
2/3 cup white sugar
1 egg
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup smashed banana
2 tbsp. milk
extra sugar and cinnamon
raisins, nuts, or chocolate chips

Instructions: Preheat oven to 350. Grease a loaf pan. Cream together the sugar, shortening, and egg. Sift the dry ingredients and add to the sugar mixture alternating with the banana and milk. Add the raisins or nuts or whatever. Turn batter into the greased pan and sprinkle the top liberally with sugar and cinnamon. Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in the pan for about 15 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack. Eat it hot with butter and a glass of milk.

At Debbie's house we made it with margarine instead of Crisco, and chocolate chips, and we cooked it in Debbie's crazy flexible bundt pan (I feel wierd calling it a pan, because it was made of that new rubbery heat-resistant material, not metal...) and it turned out delicious. The best part about baking banana bread is that it makes your house smell really good, and then you eat it warm and you always eat too much so you get that deliciously satiated feeling like on Thanksgiving Day.

Other activities of the evening included trying to play Nintendo, playing Scrabble, receiving Debbie's grocery delivery from Glatt Mart (inexpensive and kosher!), and listening to Megan talk about how wonderful her new boyfriend is. We'll have to do girl's bake-night more often, because it was very fun.

*Until Debbie emails me pictures, I am forced to illustrate this post with a stolen picture of banana bread from the interweb.