Banana Bars with Chocolate Chips - recipe

Yesterday, I brought Banana Bars to the running club get-together. Spent the afternoon running to Whole Foods looking for ripe bananas, then to Dominick's for the other ingredients.

Banana Bars with Chocolate Chips

This is a recipe my mother used when I was a child, and among my fondest memories include her sharing them with me. Essentially, they are a sort of banana bread with chocolate chips. Unlike a bread, though, they are softer, with a chocolate chip cookie color. They have a texture something like pound bread, and look like blond brownies.

Who do I credit with this recipe? Not my mom. I think she swiped it from a woman down the street who made them for her family. When I was in kindergarten at Chippewa Elementary, we had a cookbook made of all the favorite family recipes of the kids in my class. A few recipes stood out as new Trendl family favorites. This remains the best of the best, as far as I'm concerned.

If you have everything you need, you can be eating these within an hour of reading this guide. While you are munching on these (best with a glass of milk), imagine you are sitting on the letter Q (next to, as you should expect, letters P and R) in Miss V.'s kindergarten class in Palos Heights, Ill. in 1971.

Banana Bars

Cream:
2/3 cup shortening
2/3 cup lt. brown sugar
2/3 cup regular sugar

Beat in:
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg

Blend in:
1 cup mashed ripe banana

Then sift together and add:
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Mix in:
1/2 package chocolate chips (you use around 6 oz.)

Grease and lightly flour a jelly roll pan (10 x 15 approximately).

Bake at 350 for 20-35 minutes until it becomes golden and begins to shrink.

Cool 15 minutes, then cut and enjoy.

Keep covered after cutting.

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For something more adventurous, try a Hungarian dish.