Banana Bread

Every time I open up those recipe boxes I am overwhelmed by emotion. I still can't believe that Patti is no longer with us down here on earth. I really wanted to organize the recipes with Patti Jo and I still find myself wanting to call her and ask for a recipe...or just ask her advice on something I am trying to create. I hate to admit that I still have Patti Jo's cell number in my phone, how do you delete something like that?

Patti told me on several occasions that she really liked being the oracle of all family recipes. I would call her and ask for a recipe, write it all down with the intention of keeping it, but I would still call the next time I needed it. I can't tell you how many times I called her to ask for "The Banana Bread" recipe. The silly thing is that you can Google the crap out of banana bread recipes and they are all pretty much the same. It didn't matter, I needed that damn recipe from Mom...which it turns out was from Faye, a friend of Mom's.  Also, who knows if this is the only banana bread recipe in the rotation?

The pictures I will attach below show how used this recipe was, it's kinda fun to see the food and such and such that has landed on this recipe card over the years. The first time I found the recipe (we'll talk later sometime about the organization of the recipe boxes) and took it out, Tanner the handsome dog came over and was sniffing it and got all excited. He was all like..."woof, yeah baby give me that treat", I think not Tanner.

Mom used to make many a loafs of banana bread at the same time. She would freeze them and we had it at the handy among other delicious freezer treats. Funny story (maybe only funny for Vicki); Mom would make these small loafs that Dad would bring to work on Monday and then he would just have a slice every day with his lunch. Well, Vicki and I would take one of those out of the freezer and slice it frozen, slather some butter on it and snack away while we were watching Johnny Carson down in the rec room. Another fun thing that Mom would do is put Maraschino cherries in some of the loafs so it was like a little tasty surprise once in awhile.

I think Patti Jo gave me the idea to just put my over-ripe bananas in a freezer bag and that way you always have ripe bananas in case of emergency...Haha. You know, when you just have to bake banana bread! I have 6 bananas in the freezer as we speak...might be time for banana bread right?

From the kitchen of Faye (Mom's really good friend)

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 bananas crushed
2 cups flour
2 eggs
1 tsp soda
1/4 cup nuts

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs separately and beat well.
Add crushed bananas and nuts.
Add flour sifted with soda.
Bake in tin loaf pan at 350 for 45 minutes