Butter-less Banana Bread

Some things are better left to women. Normally I leave the financial, businessy stuff to Claudio because I don't like to deal with it all here in Italy. This time, however, I should have stepped in when our landlady asked whether we wanted a dishwasher or an oven. Claudio innocently chose the dishwasher and while it is timesaving, you just have to have an oven in the kitchen! 

After months of living without either and being stumped about dinner party menus, we changed our minds and now finally have our oven! The downside is that we have EVEN less kitchen space, BUT at least I was able to make some banana bread on this cold snowy day.

So in honor of our new oven, here is my Aunt's butterless Banana Bread recipe. I only realized after I had already made the batter that all my baking tins were still down in boxes in the garage, so I had to make do with ramekin muffin style banana bread. I also substituted olive oil for canola oil because there ain't nothin' in this house besides good ol' E.V.O.! Enjoy:)

Recipe for 2 Loaves:

6 ripe bananas

2 + 1/2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 tbs. vanilla

1 cup of canola oil

3 cups of flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1 cup of finely chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350°. Combine bananas and sugar in a bowl and mix on medium speed very well for about 2 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Add oil.

Whisk flour, salt and baking soda well. Stir into the banana mixture, mixing well. Fold in the chopped nuts. 

Coat two 9x5 inch loaf pans with cooking spray and dust lightly with flour. Divide the batter in the pans andn bake for 50-60 minutes. Cool 30 minutes before slicing.