Banana Bread, a new twist on the soppin' biscuits

so it's colder than I can describe in family friendly terms!!!   Seriously..this ice isn't gonna melt if it can't get above 20 degrees outside.  Could someone call Al Gore and ask him to turn global warming back on for a little while??  please?  and yes, feel free to remind me of this fact in August when it feels like the furnace is running full blast outside.

There are a number of times when I feel the urge to bake and two of them are 1) it's cold outside 2) over ripe bananas in my kitchen.  Both situations applied yesterday so I baked.  I made some chocolate chip banana nut bread.  I've made the bread several times on this here bloggity blog blog so I won't bore you with then entire escapade but I will show you the highlights and offer up the recipe in full to begin with and it bears repeating...this is the hubsters mom's base recipe.

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
2 well beaten eggs
3-4 crushed bananas
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 cups flour-sifted w/ 1 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp salt

Mix your first 4 ingredients and then add the vanilla to the milk.  Mix in the flour mixture and milk alternately.
Bake in greased pan for 50-60 minutes at 375 degrees.

Now here's my additional 2cents on the subject.

these are my ingredients...you can see the addition of walnuts and chocolate chips in the picture

I've found if I beat my eggs in the bowl first then add in the shortening and sugar and bananas I get a better mixture to begin with.
After I get the batter mixed then I stir in the chocolate chips and the walnut pieces. Because hey, we like it that way!  You can use pecans if you like too.
slight diversion.....I bought a new LeCreuset loaf pan and I decided to split my batter between it and the Pampered Chef stoneware pan to see if I could tell a difference

Now I was also thinking...hmmmmm, wouldn't some kind of nice streusel topping be good on that bread??

so I used this stuff plus a touch of cinnamon and mixed me some up and sprinkled over the top.  In case you are wondering, just more chocolate chips, walnuts pieces, brown sugar and a little dash of cinnamon.

so now we are ready for the oven and since I split my batter into two loaves it was only about 40 minutes to cook so keep an eye on it when it's baking.

I do so apologize for the picture...I had to hurry because the hubster was trying to cut the bread right out of the pan and I only snapped the photo of one loaf.    I can say that I couldn't really tell much difference in the loaves.  The one in the LeCreuset pan was "taller" but I think that was from the difference in batter amount and not anything else.  Otherwise they seemed to cook equally the same.

Dinner Time!
Digging around to find something for dinner since we couldn't really get out to the grocery turned up some gumbo soup mix.

Just followed the directions on the soup mix.  Used some of that goood Lewsiana saw-sage that Ms. Leslie brought us. Made a little pot of white rice to go with it too.

Now, hubster has been having a fit for me to make more "soppin' biscuits" so I thought let's give it a whirl with a cajun flair.  I took that BIG bag of cajun butter from the fridge and used that instead of regular butter.  Mixed up the soppin'biscuits like before.   You can click on this little ole' link to take you right over to the biscuit recipe.
Here we are in the pan before hitting the oven

just so we are all clear....... this is WAAAAYYYY too much butter.  :0)  plus it's cajun butter so it's got some kickin' spice to it.   Bake those up

well at least the butter soaked up some!

Dinner was served!

Yeppers....it was mighty tasty!!

Now if you will excuse me I'm gonna sign off for today before the next "rolling blackout" happens. You heard me...it's so stinking cold around here that the state of Texas is having rolling blackouts today since the power usage is so high.  They only last about 15-30 minutes, you know just enough to have to reset the clock on the microwave and reboot your computer.  Lovely!!   We've only had two so far today so I'm figuring we are due another any time and I'm too lazy to retype any of this so I'm gonna close for the day. Stay warm my peeps and remember.....

Peace, Love and Yummies