Toree

My favorite little kindergartener, Claire, got to bring her dog to school for show and tell.  I try not to have favorites but it is SO hard when she is so cute.

Claire was THE CUTEST showing off her little dog, Toree. 

Claire's mom had called the school the week before and asked me to help with Toree. She knew that I was not afraid of dogs because I had brought Eddie to school a few weeks ago.

Toree did a great job, so did Claire. But like Eddie, after about 15 minutes she was ready to go home. Claire would scoop Toree up and carry her around to all of the kids. It was very cute. The dog probably only weighed a pound, it was all fur. But of course Claire acted like it weighed 100 pounds. Pretty cute.

Joe has some cute pictures on his phone that I will try and upload later.

Killer Banana Bread

Bananas were super cheap at Costco this month. We got a bunch of 12 bananas for 2,000 won or $1.60 give or take.
We bought them on Wednesday, keep in mind Joe and I both like our bananas green, and by Saturday they were covered in brown spots. :(

I checked around online for a good recipe but couldn't find anything that I was sold on. So I turned to Facebook. In the morning I posted a quick request something like, "anyone have a REALLY good banana bread recipe that they don't mind sharing?". Before lunch I had 4 recipes in my inbox!

I decided to combine my favorite, most intreging or "secret" parts of each persons recipe. Here is what I ended up with:

Killer Banana Bread

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

1/2 cup melted butter
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs (lightly beaten)
5 medium size ripe bananas, smashed
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup  buttermilk. If you don't have buttermilk add a cap-ful of vinegar to regular milk
1/3 cup boiling hot water

1/2 cup nuts (optional)

Mix melted butter, sugar and eggs together. Blend in the smashed bananas. Stir well.
In another small bowl combine flour, salt and baking soda.
Add Half the flour mixture to the butter mixture. Stir well.
Add the 1/3 cup hot water. Stir well.
Add buttermilk and the remaining flour mixture. Stir well.
Add nuts if you want.
Grease loaf pan.
Bake for 1 hour-ish.
(ever oven is different keep your eye on it and check with a tooth pick around 50 minutes and add time as needed)

 Some of the recipes overlapped so I decided that those were important parts to keep. Leah's recipe had the hot water added to the flour. I have never seen that before and I liked the idea.  Debbie and Bev sent me a similar recipe with the buttermilk/sour milk. They are both seasoned bakers so I thought that was a good idea. I added a bit more sugar because my bananas were not very sweet and a bit more four because I added the extra liquid (hot water and the butter milk). I wanted to add vanilla but I didn't have any....maybe next time.
 

We were going to let it cool then wrap it up for breakfast tomorrow. But it smelled SO good we decided to try some for dessert.

I must say this was THE best banana bread I have EVER had!
It was light and fluffy, super moist with tons of banana flavor, delicious!
It was more cake like than dense bread like.

Joe is not a fan of nuts and we didn't have any at home but next time I will add a handful of walnuts.
Can't wait until breakfast so I can have some more. Thanks for all of the great recipes!