It's a New Day ( so say the Black Eye Peas): September 9, 2009, 9-9-9 (a lucky number for the Chinese) and I have got an old fashion banana nut bread in the oven. I looked for an easy recipe to repurpose the bananas that did not become smoothies. I buy a lot of bananas for the boardwalk smoothies. But when the weather is iffy, business is slow and we are unable to make smoothies. So for business reasons we have to figure out a way to create something else good to eat in order to avoid waste.

Here is the recipe I have used which comes from the www.recipegal.com. There it states the origin is the Oxmoor House Southern Heritage Cookbook Library. Rather than make adjustments to this recipe, I thought I would cook it first to first determine what my spin will be. Other than a switch of walnuts rather than pecans, I have followed the recipe faithfully.

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups mashed banana (4 medium, ripe to over-ripe)
1/2 cups coarsely chopped pecans *

The process took less than 10 minutes. I'd left the stick of butter out over night. I simply creamed the butter with the sugar, beat the eggs and folded in the rest of the ingredients. As you can see from the photos, I tasted two and they tasted more like a cookie than a muffin. Clearly I overcooked them. I think the loaves represent the recipe. They are moist and probably a lot better than a croissant nutritionally. So try this recipe especially if you like bananas.

By the way, my friend Darlene who worked many years with Kentucky extension states the nutritional value of watermelon with seeds and seedless watermelons is the same.

Andrea Beaman: September 18th. Seating begins at 5:30. You can make your reservations at Paypal using jzshore@gmail.com as the email address. Tickets are $45 in advance.

See you there or be square.