French Toast Experiment!

We had lots of banana bread and blueberry/zucchini bread this weekend since our Littles are on a baking binge.  Thing #5 has now been informed of the 'secret ingredient' of the blueberry bread.  She is less-than-thrilled but she can't fight her love of the bread enough for it to make a difference.  Thank goodness!

As parents, we spend a lot of time staring into the pantry and the refrigerator/freezer thinking, "What do we have and what can we DO with it?" Especially with picky kids with very different tastes. 

We decided to use up our quick breads and make french toast with them!  We thought we'd share this idea with you.  I'm sure most of us don't need a lesson or a recipe for french toast, so we'll just leave you with a picture of our finished product to inspire you!

Well, maybe a quick reminder to add cinnamon and nutmeg with maaaaaaaaybe a little sugar to your whipped eggs.

Thing #5 insisted on making her own french toast - she chose blueberry zucchini bread only and she had a blast with the spray whipped cream this weekend!  Yes, they make an organic version!

So if you have have an abundance of quick breads piling up in the house - try this out!  You'll be a hero, I promise!

Grandma's Banana Bread

This is the banana bread recipe my grandmother made my entire life.  There is no better way of using up over-ripe bananas in my opinion.  We so often have brown bananas since none of us like them once they start to brown.

Up to bat:  Thing #5!  She was excited to make this with me but once we started, she wouldn't let me help.  Our little baker.  She's getting pretty good at this stuff!

So here it is, the family Banana Bread recipe that came from who-knows-where and everyone loves!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 Cups Sugar
• 1/2 Cup Butter, softened
• 2 Eggs
• 1 1/2 Cps Mashed VERY ripe bananas (3-4 medium)
• 1/2 Cup Buttermilk
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla
• 2 1/2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
• 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1 Teaspoon Salt

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400 Degrees
• Grease bottom of pan(s) - use (2) 8x4-inch loaf pans or (1) 9x5-inch loaf pan
• In a large bowl, beat together butter & sugar.
• Add to bowl:  eggs, bananas, buttermilk and vanilla; beat with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. (also a great time to pick out any banana peels that children may have missed when peeling the bananas!  Yes, it happened.)
• Stir in flour, baking soda and salt just until moistened.
• Pour batter in to pan(s)
• Bake 8-inch loaves 1 hour, 9-inch loaf 1 1/4 hours or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
• Cool 10 minutes
• Loosen sides of loaves from pans, remove and place on a cooling rack for about an hour before slicing.

Since we have so many over-ripe bananas in the freezer.... we may experiment with other things to do with this bread!  Stay tuned!