The Best Banana Bread

I’ve (Amelia) loved banana bread my whole life. I remember being eleven and eating almost an entire loaf, my mom being shocked, and me feeling like I could still go for more. Given a proper incentive, I’m sure I could still pull it off today. Our banana bread is the best of its kind. Whenever I stray and try a new recipe it’s not the same.

Why is it the best? A combination of butter and coconut oil gives this sweetbread the perfect flavor profile, so it’s moist, sweet, and perfectly balanced. Feel free to skip the chocolate, but also please don’t. And, if you’re feeling like a real treat, we highly recommend banana bread sundaes.

We learned to turn banana bread into a dessert sundae at Sacco’s Bowl Haven in Somerville, MA.

Banana Bread

Makes 2 loaves

• 2 eggs

• 5 bananas

• 1/2 cup butter

• 1/2 cup coconut oil or shortening

• 2 cups sugar

• 4 cups flour

• 2 teaspoons soda

• 2 teaspoons salt

• 1 cup chocolate chips or diced dried apricots, or a combination of both (all optional)

Slice the butter cube in half and put half in each of the two bread pans. Place in the oven for the butter to melt while you heat the oven to 325°. This will not only grease the pan, but also brown the butter a bit, for a little extra wonderful flavor.  

Whisk together the flour, soda, and salt. Peel and smash the bananas with a potato masher.

Beat together the butter, coconut oil or shortening, and sugar for a minute or two until fluffy and thoroughly mixed. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each. Stir in the banana, then stir in the dry ingredients, but only until some white streaks still remain. Add the chocolate chips or apricots, if desired, and finish stirring so that the batter has a uniform texture.

 Divide the batter between two pans smoothing the tops a bit, and bake for 65 to 70 minutes. Let sit for 10 minutes, then remove from pans to finish cooling on a cooling rack.

We love to eat this simply sliced, or sliced and toasted, or with ice cream and hot fudge sauce, like a brownie sundae with a twist.

Banana bread and hot chocolate for a heavenly 4 pm snack.

Southwestern Layered Bean Dip

This is the ultimate bean dip. It has cheese, salsa, avocado, olives, beans, sour cream —everything you could ever want in a bean dip. After spreading thin layer on top of thin layer on top of thin layer, we scoop it up with tortilla chips. We make it to celebrate the birth of every New Year and it’s always just as good as we remember. I (Amelia) even have it for breakfast, though I admit that’s just me.

This recipe is the brainchild of my lovely grandmother, Kathleen Stewart, who knows her way around dips. Grandma was the inspiration for this lemon bundt cake, and we owe her many a tradition, culinary or not. It’s been hard having to socially distance from her, but eating this dip and thinking of her brought her a little closer.

2020 might be gone, but the problems we encountered then have not vanished. We still need to socially distance, take care of our planet, and work to build a more equal society. So, as we enter into this new year, I suggest doing so with some beans in the belly.

Southwestern Layered Bean Dip

Layer in this order (we use an 18-inch round platter, and smooth smooth each layer with a spatula):

• 1 15-ounce can Refried beans (Taco Bell Brand)

• 1 16-ounce Pace Picante Sauce

• 1 Avocado, cut into ¼” chunks

• Tomato or red pepper, cut into 1/4-inch chunks

• 5 -ounce can diced, mild green chilis

• 1 1/2 cups sour cream

• 1/2 package of McCormick  or 2 tablespoons Penzeys taco seasoning

• small can chopped olives

• 2 to 3 green onions, sliced

• 3/4 cup grated cheese

• Also be good with lime juice squeezed over the top, optional

• 1 to 2 packages of your favorite tortilla chips (we love Juanitas brand), for serving.

This dip is one of the only ways Lucia likes beans.

Sourdough Granola Bars

Granola bars used to be my (Amelia’s) all time favorite food, but these days, I find them a little too stale and a little too sweet. I tried to solve this problem with homemade granola bars, but the recipes I’ve tried thus far have either been 1) too sweet, 2) complete structural disasters, or 3), both.

Just after I’d given up hope and wished my granola bar days goodbye, my Gia introduced us to sourdough granola bars. The idea enticed us and we knew we had to try them. To my delight, they were the granola bar I’d been looking for. They have a wonderful flavor and stick together easily. After some tweaking, we had a new favorite granola bar, perfect for after-school snacks.

Yes, you need a sourdough starter. But - the rest of the recipe is very simple, and we know many people have been experimenting with sourdough recently, so if there’s ever a time to use starter without much effort, this is it. Literally just mix everything together and bake it. I promise, you can do it.

Sourdough Granola Bars

• 1 cup whole pecans, toasted and cooled

• 2 cups rolled oats

• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

• 1/3 cup pumpkin seeds/pepitas

• 1/3 cup dried fruit (we especially like dried figs, cherries, and a few golden raisins)

• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

• 1/3 cup maple syrup

• 1 cup sourdough starter

Take sourdough start out of the fridge and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8 x 8 inch baking dish.

Toast the pecans (we do so at 350 in our toaster oven) in the oven for 7-10 minutes, until their color has deepened and they are fragrant. Set aside to cool.

Put oats, salt, pepitas, dried fruit, and chocolate chips in a medium bowl and stir to combine. Once the pecans have cooled, chop them and add them to the bowl (it’s important to give them time to cool, both to give the oils time to settle and to avoid melting the chocolate chips). Stir in the maple syrup and sourdough starter with a spatula until well combined (you might have to fight with the starter a little bit, but keep stirring and it will work out).

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Let cool completely in pan (this is important for easy cutting), then transfer the bars to a cutting board and cut into desired sizes.

Chocolate-less: If you prefer a lighter snack, omit the chocolate chips and increase the dried fruit to 1/2 cup.

Millet: Add 1/3 cup millet to the dry ingredients, if you have it on hand.

Old-Fashioned Oatmeal

When I (Kate) first lived in Russia as a twenty-year old, I had an older roommate from the Ukraine who made us oatmeal every morning for breakfast. Ludmila Romanina was her name, and during the few months we lived together she took on oatmeal as a challenge. Had she lived in Brookline, Massachusetts during those early years of Cooks’ Illustrated magazine, I’m certain a symbiotic relationship would have flourished. As it was, she planted an understanding in my heart that oatmeal had considerable potential in terms of flavor and texture worth even more than its offering of sound nutrition.    

Amelia’s bowl

Preparing oatmeal is easy, but the many approaches out there can be misleading. Made with water as the only liquid, you deprive yourself of any creaminess. Using only milk, the resulting richness overwhelms the oats’ chew and delicate flavor. Omit salt and you’ll understand why some people consider oatmeal slop—it’s the equivalent of abducting the poor oats and asking them to communicate with scarves stuffed inside their little mouths.

 The following recipe will get your oatmeal just exactly where it needs to be, freeing you to experiment with toppings—from a simple spoonful of jam to more elaborate glories. On vacation, weekends, or if we awaken five minutes early enough on a weekday, we adorn the oatmeal with granola and, depending on the season, fresh or canned fruit, a spoonful of nut butter, dried currants or cherries, a sprinkle of nuts, muesli—really, the potential combinations are so stimulating you can work yourself into a state. And we have—it’s a state called bliss. 

Mom’s bowl

Old-fashioned Oatmeal

Serves 2 or 3

• 1 cup rolled oats (aka Old-fashioned oats)

• 1 cup milk (of your choice)

• 1 cup water

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• Brown sugar, to taste

Place oats, milk, water, and salt in a saucepan. Turn heat to medium-high, bring to a simmer, then turn heat to medium low or low, to maintain a simmer but prevent boiling. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat and add sweetener (I like brown sugar; Amelia prefers it without; it’s also good with honey or maple syrup).

If you are serving the oatmeal in a fairly plain way, these quantities make two satisfying servings. On a busy morning where timing-wise the choice to squeeze in oatmeal was a bit dangerous, we’ll top it with a spoonful of jam and be perfectly content.

Pemmican lesson from Darren Parry