Sunday, September 28, 2008

Garage Sale and Banana Bread

Yesterday, we had our badly needed garage sale. We got our butts up at 5 a.m. to set everything up and fried out in the sun till 2 p.m. (even though we had SPF 50 on). BUT the good news is we made just under $400 and still have a few items we can put up on Craigslist to see if we can sell them there.

Afterwards, we got a truck and hauled everything to Goodwill and Habitat for Humanity. I took about a gazillion books we were trying to sell to a used bookstore to resell and donate to the Iraqi Veterans Hospital. Plus, we were selling cold drinks, Lemon Pound Cake, and Banana Nut Bread at the sale, so I took the leftovers to the Central Fla. SPCA to give to the staff. I sometimes do that as an appreciation for what they do everyday. Afterwards, we were pooped!

Good karma, we haz it!

Now about those cakes. We sold quite a bit of it and got some wonderful comments. The banana nut bread is a recipe from Southern Living that took me FOREVER to find. It seems all other banana nut breads I tried were too dense and dry, so I went of a quest one year to find THE RECIPE. When I first made this, I knew it was going to be a hit just by the way the batter tasted. Now, normally I am not a batter licker, but it smelled so good I couldn't help myself!


Cream Cheese Banana Nut Bread
Recipe source: Southern Living

3/4 cup butter, softened
1 (8 oz.) packaged of cream cheese
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
3 cups All purp. flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (I use over ripe bananas)
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup chopped pecans, toasted

Beat butter and cream cheese together until creamy. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, and beat until blended. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture until blended. Mix in bananas and vanilla until blended. Hand mix in pecans.

Preheat oven to 350. Spoon batter into two, greased & floured 8 x 4 inch loaf pans and bake for approximately 1 hour or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. When finished, cool in pans for 10 minutes, then remove and cool for 30 minutes before slicing (it's hard to do, I know!)

The Lemon Pound Cake is an Ina Garten recipe and I adore her. If she were so hopelessly devoted to Jeffrey, I'd marry her and have her babies. Every recipe I've ever made of hers has been a pure #1 hit. Again, the batter was a dead give away. I'll have to post that another time, cuz it's late and I'm still recovering.

7 comments:

OhioMom said...

Oh yummy looking breads! Congrats on those karma points :)

Marysol said...

Why! I made banana bread last night, minus the cream cheese. In fact, I'd never heard of such yummy addition to banana bread. Must try.

You did good on your garage sale, and I know you will do just as well selling the rest of it online. We've been pretty successful using Craig's list.

Just the Right Size said...

Sol, I swear cream cheese makes the BEST quick breads. It took me a looooong time to find a recipe that I really liked and this one is awesome!

Ohiomom, karma rocks!

Anonymous said...

I've got to try that recipe! I have a lot of the Southern Living cookbooks, and they almost always come through with the best recipes!
Ina Garten, too, is one of my favorites. I'll look and see if I can find her lemon bread recipe. I think i've posted a few of her recipes on my blog before, and her scallops provencal recipe is outstanding!

That is really cool what you did with all the "leftovers" from the garage sale! Everyone benefits in some way. We need to have a sale real bad, the garage is closing in on us, and so are the holidays. I'd like to have one before then.

Just the Right Size said...

Laura....we've got to pay for those bathroom remodels somehow! Notice we had our old toilets & vanities in the garage sale picture? Now they're on Freecycle. :-)

Plus, I'm saving pennies to buy a kickass Nikon D80!!!!

jojo said...

I HAVE TO remember NOT to read your posts when STARVING... geesh. can't you just put me on the mailing list and send me all the food you ever make on here? LOL...

Anonymous said...

Hi. I think I see a thin white icing in your photo. Does the cake need that, or did you just want it extra sweet?

 

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