Banana Bread

If you have a copy of the 2003 edition of the Hogley Cookbook, you may have noticed that page 10 and page 13 have the exact same recipe. One of these pages was supposed to be this recipe for Banana Bread, and now you can see what you've been missing!

This recipe originally came to us from Ms. Segreti, a friend of Joy's mother-in-law, via a copy of their church cookbook. It's incredibly easy and really delicious!

Banana Bread

2 overripe bananas
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 butter, melted
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 325°.

Grease and flour a regular-sized loaf pan.

In a medium bowl, mash the bananas to a pulp. Mix in the sugar and then the egg. Drizzle in the butter and stir until well combined. (You'll still have lumps of banana.)

Stir in the flour, salt, baking soda and walnuts, and then pour into the pan and smooth the top.

Bake for 1 hour, or until completely set in the middle. (Stick in a toothpick or a strand of spaghetti to make sure only crumbs come out.)

Buttermilk pancakes

Remember what I said about breakfast in my house? We love it. In fact, I think three of the five foods my son will actually eat on a regular basis are bacon, omelettes, and pancakes. He loves pancakes so much that I have to much extras on the weekends so that we can pop them in the toaster for him for weekday breakfasts (they keep surprisingly well for this purpose).

I have to give credit to my sister Joy's mother-in-law for this recipe. Until Frances taught Joy how to make these pancakes, we were all really waffle fans, and just tolerated pancakes. Now I eat pancakes almost every weekend.

I think it goes without saying, but these are best with real maple syrup...

Buttermilk Pancakes

2 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 eggs (3 if they are medium-sized ones)
2 cups cultured nonfat buttermilk, plus some extra
2 tablespoons melted butter

Sift together flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt.

Stir together eggs and buttermilk. Mix butter into liquid slowly, then pour liquids into flour mixture. (I usually skip this step and just dump the eggs and buttermilk into the flour at the same time, then use the pan that I'm going to cook the pancakes in to melt the butter, then I whisk that into the batter just before cooking.) Stir well.

Add a little more buttermilk if necessary to get to a smooth, not-too-thick but not-too-thin texture. For me, the texture is right when the batter spreads evenly in the pan, but still needs just the slightest spreading with the back of a ladle.

Heat a frying pan to just below-medium temperature. Melt just a little butter in the pan to coat the bottom. Pour some batter in the pan and smooth out a little with the spoon so that it isn’t too thick. When large bubbles appear on the surface, it is ready to be turned over (don't wait too long!). Serve hot!

Nutrition info:

For one 6-inch pancake: 130 calories, 3.3g fat (1.7g saturated fat), 20.1g carbs (4.1g sugars), 4.6g protein

Contributed by Gwyneth

We're big fans of breakfast in this house. Every weekend morning you'll find us tucking into pancakes, waffles, or biscuits, or maybe bacon and omelets, and of course big pots of tea and coffee to wash it down. A few years ago I finally learned to make my mom's biscuit recipe, and now I make these almost every week. My mom, on the other hand, really only pulled out the biscuits on special occasions, so I never realized just how easy they are. The part of this recipe that takes the longest is waiting for the oven to get hot enough!

It's also a great use of all the buttermilk we always have lying around. My mom's original recipe called for Crisco and milk, but I have updated it with fresh butter and buttermilk, which makes a rich but fluffy biscuit perfect for slathering with butter or jam (or topping with gravy, as I am inclined to do on occasion.)



This recipe makes about 16 biscuits, so I usually do a half recipe. I have tried freezing the biscuit dough after it's been cut into rounds, but this seems to result in flat, dense biscuits, so I don't recommend it.

Buttermilk Biscuits

1/2 cup butter
2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
2/3 to 3/4 cup lowfat buttermilk

Preheat oven to 475ºF. Mix together the flour, salt, and baking powder. With a fork or pastry blender (or your fingers) cut the butter into the flour. Work until you obtain pea-size bits. Stir in the buttermilk by degrees. Stop adding when dough just comes together.

Combine with your fingers just until the dry bits are incorporated, then press the dough into a 1/2 inch thick sheet. Cut into circles with a cookie cutter or small glass. Arrange side by side on a baking sheet. Bake for 5 minutes at 475ºF, then lower the heat and bake another 7-8 minutes at 450ºF. Serve hot with lots of butter and jam.