Easy banana bread

It isn't easy to gussy up brown food. Even on the prettiest Grindley plates my banana bread still looks very, well , brown.

If I tell you it is utterly delish, moist and packed with glorious juicy sultanas and crunchy walnut pieces will that sell it to you? This is so easy to make it is almost cheating. Completely divine with a nice cup of tea sitting on the porch watching your husband heave blocks of stone around, so nice to watch a bit of manual labour now and again.......

Easy Banana Bread (recipe adapted from Nigella Lawson's 'How to be a Domestic Goddess")

100 grams sultanas (you could use raisins if you prefer)

75 mls bourbon (or use orange juice if you don't fancy using booze)

175 gr plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Good pinch of nutmeg

125 gr unsalted butter, melted

150 gr sugar

2 eggs

3 medium bananas, ripe and spotty, probably starting to whiff a bit

70 gr chopped walnuts

1 tsp vanilla paste

Preheat your oven to 170C/340F

Heat the bourbon up in a small saucepan and when it is boiling take off the heat and add the sultanas. Set aside while you sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg and salt into a decent sized bowl.

In another bowl pour the melted butter and sugar and using a wooden spoon stir together. Add the eggs, and stir again to combine.

Add the bananas, (which I mashed with a fork in the dirty butter saucepan, why use another bowl?) walnuts and vanilla, stirring again until everything is mixed in.

Pour the whole lot into your flour mix, and stir with your wooden spoon until you have a thickish batter.

Pour into a greased loaf tin and bake for 1-11/4 hours. It will be golden and make you house smell amazing. I like it warm with butter, but it is also great cold. I slice it and freeze the slices to pop into my sandwich bag for work, worth getting to morning tea for.

Some people toast banana bread, its never been my scene, but toast away if you wish, it's your kitchen. Maybe with a slather of ricotta cheese and a drizzle of honey, now that would be a fine breakfast.

You may have noticed a new look at Plum Kitchen, for an atecho type like me this is quite an achievement. I am working on a recipe index, to make it easier to navigate around the site, and am toying with the idea of adding music. Do you find music on websites/blogs annoying or enjoyable?

The hole in the ground has progressed nicely ,and the end is in sight. Hopefully with some planting it will less like a would-be home cinema and more like a garden/deck..........as you can see we have not quite come to an agreement re the colour of the fench, much discussion on this most emotive of topics, no consensus has been reached thus far, a negotiator may yet be called in, watch this space...........