Strawberry Banana Bread

I always feel so virtuous when I make banana bread.  I'm saving those close-to-rotten bananas from being wasted! Imagine how awesome I felt when I also rescued some slightly sad strawberries by adding them to a batch of banana bread!  When I tried this little experiment I had no idea how delicious it would turn out to be.  This was really good.  Another one of those accidental foods that I would make again on purpose.  Give this a try some time.

Strawberry Banana Bread

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/2 cup softened butter

2 eggs

3 or 4 mashed over ripe bananas

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup chopped nuts

1 quart strawberries, coarsely chopped

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease the bottoms of two 8 1/2 inch loaf pans.
• Cream together the sugar and butter.  Stir in the eggs until well blended.  Stir in the bananas, buttermilk, and vanilla then beat the mixture until it's smooth.
• Stir in the flour, baking soda, and salt gently just until the mixture is moistened.  Carefully stir in the nuts and strawberries by hand. Pour into the loaf pans.
• Bake about 1 hour, then cool 10 minutes before removing from the pans.