Beard on Banana Bread

So, my household had a thing about bananas. We buy 'em, we leave 'em in the fruit bowl and two weeks later we throw rotten brown objects in the trash. That's not counting the one that stayed in Fish's backpack for a few months and emerged petrified....

This time, just as I was approaching the trash can, I had a "Eureka" moment. Banana bread! With cream cheese. Okay, so on to the flour bin. Again, adapted from Beard on Bread. My antique copy is pictured at left. Purchased when I was in college, now yellowed and nearly falling apart. Someday I'll replace it (just not yet - that would mean admitting I'm getting old enough to outlive my possessions. Never!)

So, sift 2 cups of flour, 1 tsp baking soda, and 0.5 tsp salt into a medium-sized bowl. In another bowl (usually the bowl of my stand mixer, but you can do this by hand), cream 0.5 cup butter (that's one stick) and 1 cup granulated sugar. This is easier if the butter is not fridge-cold. Room temp is good, which can be approximated by microzapping the butter (wrap and all) for 10 seconds before plopping it in the bowl. In a third bowl, mash 2 very ripe, medium-sized bananas. Crack 2 eggs, add them to the mashed banana and mix well. In a fourth bowl (you do have someone to wash your dishes for you, don't you?), mix 0.33 cup milk and 1 tsp lemon juice. First, add the banana and eggs to the butter/sugar mixture. Now, add about one-third of the flour mixture to the butter/sugar/banana/egg mixture and mix briefly. Add half the milk/lemon juice and mix again. Add half the remaining flour mixture and mix well, add the rest of the milk/lemon juice and mix well, and finish up by adding the last of the flour mixture. Mix the whole shebang until it looks uniform and all the dry ingredients are well-blended. Now add 0.5 cup chopped walnuts (or pecans, or whatever you have lying around in your nut drawer), mix a little bit more (so all your nuts aren't in one big pile) and spoon the batter into a "lavishly buttered" 9x5x3 inch pan (don't ya just LOVE James Beard?). Bake the loaf in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 50-55 minutes. Check for doneness with a toothpick test (mine invariably ends up with a tiny raw spot somewhere near the middle of the loaf - gotta learn to use my toothpick in a couple of places). Let the loaf cool, slide it out of its pan, slice it and slather it with cream cheese. Good for breakfast, good for snack, good for just about anything (except possibly for use as a hockey puck - its a little fragile for this).