Recipes For Quick Breads In A Box With A Homemade Twist

• Benjamin Franklin wanted the national bird to be a Turkey. Hm, now I wonder, if that had happened, would we still eat that bird?
• What's on your Thanksgiving menu? More than 40 million green bean casseroles are served on Thanksgiving Day. Wouldn't you like to be the one selling the green beans?
• Columbus thought that turkeys (a member of the pheasant family) were a kind of peacock, and named them tuka, which means "peacock" in Tamil language. He was probably confused because he thought he had landed on land connected to India.
• When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, the natives were not friendly, instead were hostile. The Pilgrims went further south, to Cape Cod and found friendly natives who taught them how to catch certain fish, how to plant corn, and how to tap maple trees for sap. The Thanksgiving holiday evolved over time, and was even opposed by President Thomas Jefferson.
• Turkey was chosen for the meat of the early celebrations, mainly because it was so plentiful. It now reaches 280 million in sales for Thanksgiving meals.
• The first cornocopia was a goat's horn stuffed full of fruits and grains. Greek mythology tells of a goat's horn which was broken and offered to the Greek God Zeus as an indication of reverance. Zeus was so impressed and grateful to the goat for breaking off the horn and offering it up to the God, that it was set into the sky, and is now the constellation Capricorn.

See, how could you have Thanksgiving without knowing this important information? Actually it might be fun to talk about some of these trivials with your family as the big Turkey Day arrives.

Though called one upon occasion, I'm glad I'm not a turkey. 91% of Americans eat the bird on Thanksgiving Day, so run birdie run!!

I am not a fan of the traditional candied fruit breads often found on the table during the Holidays. To me, it resembles a hockey puck and I just can't eat that hard as a rock fruit.

So, I was thrilled when my mother and aunts converted their fruit breads to softer versions. Most of the time my aunts and grandmother could whip up a bread or cake from scratch quicker than you could empty a cake mix and beat in an egg. But, once in a while, when the more convenient cake mixes became popular, they'd break down, buy one, and dump it in a bowl.

They just couldn't leave it alone. Before you could blink, they'd be mashing a banana, grating an orange, and chopping more dates and pecans.

Then, they'd get out the oats, more brown sugar and cinnamon, and a drop of vanilla. Now, Paula Deen would be proud, because even my aunts knew you couldn't make all those changes to a store-bought mix without adding more fat. Here would come the butter, in addition to the oil the mix requested. If the box called for 1 egg they added 2. And in the end, every loaf was dusted with powdered sugar.

Oh, the calories!!

Oh, the flavor!

With all that trouble in the batter bowl, I never understood why they purchased the store bought mix, and when asked that question, they would look at me like I was crazy, saying "Because it's easier, why should we do all the work?"

Uh, huh. Ok. Easier. I've got it.

"Now, remember not to beat that batter to death, Marisue. It'll get tough."

In that crazy kitchen, with unspoken rules, life seemed simple. One of my fondest memories, among the nutmeg and cinnamon smells, is how Aunt Lady and Aunt Cally would talk about anyone who was different. That covered a lot of ground, meaning someone of "color", background, religion, behavior, or "raising" that was not the same  as theirs.

When they talked about the "others" their voice would drop to an instant whisper, "They're not ...white ..." they'd say. "I think they're from way out...yonder. They're Indians." Nod, Nod. And the batter flew.

I was a mixture of city/country, so this particular behavior of theirs puzzled, annoyed, and made me laugh.

One day, in my 13 year old wisdom, I braved the question, "Aunt Lady, why do you whisper when you mention someone who is not the same as us in color or custom?"

Aunt Lady turned and put her hand on her ample hip, holding the dripping wooden spoon and stared at me. "Well, everyone knows you're not being mean when you whisper."

Then she winked knowingly, and nodded at her sister, Cally. The kitchen hummed, the oven baked, and life was sweet.

I loved those two women, who made up life's rules as they went along. They actually didn't have a mean bone in their body, and yet discussed everyone and everything, whether they understood it or not.

I think the world could use a whole lot more whispering.

Assemble Ingredients:

• 1 package banana quick bread mix
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 c mashed banana
• 2 eggs, beaten slightly
• 3 tblsp oil
• 1 tblsp butter
• 3 tblsp melted butter, set aside
• 2 tblsp packed brown sugar (mash each into the spoon, dump into the bowl, do again)
• 1 c oats, (quick or old fashioned, uncooked of course)
• 1/2 c chopped pecans
• 1 tblsp coconut milk, optional

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 375. Grease and flour bottom of loaf pan.
2. Mix together oats, pecans, 3 tblsp melted butter and sugar. Now, take out 1/2 c of this mixture and set aside for topping of bread, later.
3. In another bowl, add the remaining oat mixture to the quick bread mix. Stir in 1 c water, the mashed banana, eggs, and oil, vanilla, and cinnamon and coconut milk if you chose it.  Do not over mix, but stir until the dry ingredients are all moistened.
4. Batter will be lumpy. Pour into prepared loaf pan and sprinkle the top of the loaf with the rest of the oat mixture.
5. Bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean.
6. Cool in pan for about 10 -12 minutes and then invert onto a wire rack and remove from pan.

Serve warm, and don't forget to dust the top with powdered sugar. Yikes! Don't even think about spreading the warm slice with butter.

Just do it.

I'm sure you would never ever dip a slice of this into an egg mixture, and fry it for a new twist on french toast...

She did it.