More Brown Bananas

As promised I’m back with more things to do with brown bananas. This time I had a whole heap of them from work! I sold about 1/3 of our over ripe ones as “Banana Bread Bananas” for ridiculously cheap – I’d seen it done before, so keep your eye out – but the rest I had to take home, oh, poor me.

What the heck was I gonna do with 10 brown bananas!? Well, luckily I have a list. As, I've said before, I ALWAYS end up with brown bananas, so I just started going down my list, and made the first four things, after banana bread of course:

• Banana bread – made last week – so not this time
• Frozen bananas – to use at a later date
• Banana pancakes – and make some extra for easy breakfasts
• Fruit roll ups – Awesome!
• Smoothie

Easy peasy.  First, I froze the bananas two ways. I put some whole, sealed in labeled ziplock bags. These are great for making banana bread or banana pancakes in a pinch. Admit it, sometimes you just have a craving for some :) Then, I sliced a few more and put them on parchment paper, on a pan, not touching, then in the freezer. Once frozen, just move them into a container, and keep frozen. Use them in smoothies instead of adding ice or dip them in chocolate or peanut butter for a quick mid-summer snack.

To make banana pancakes (base recipe found here):

Banana Pancakes

Makes seven 5-inch pancakes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tbls oil
• 2 small ripe bananas (or one large one), mashed
• ½ tsp vanila

Directions:

1. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together egg, milk, vegetable oil, vanilla and bananas.
2. Stir flour mixture into banana mixture; batter will be slightly lumpy.
3. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium low heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the pan and flatten the batter out a bit. Cook until pancakes are golden brown on both sides; serve hot.
4. Substitutions: use some or all whole wheat flour. I didn’t have quite enough milk, so I used half sour cream. Could also use, butter milk or soy milk (use just a little less than a cup for soy). Could use melted butter or coconut oil instead of the vegetable oil.

The batter is thick and these pancakes take a while to cook – they need to cook slowly, and are a soft fluffy texture when they’re done. The insides will seem not cooked enough when you flip them, but just be patient, their delicious.

I always make a few extra, and as I froze the sliced bananas, just put the cooled extras on a parchment paper lined sheet pan, freeze solid, then transfer to a ziplock. To reheat, just throw the frozen pancakes in the toaster oven and toast at the medium dark brown setting. They come out perfect.

Lastly, fruit roll ups. To make them, you need to dust off your dehydrator and get some special rollup trays (found here). I decided to make strawberry banana ones today:

Strawberry Banana Fruit Rolls
Ingredients:

• Big handful of strawberries, washed and husked
• 2 super ripe bananas

Directions:

1. Blend strawberries and bananas together, till really smooth.
2. Pour the mixture onto the special trays. Smooth out till it’s in an even ¼-3/8 inch layer.
3. Turn on dehydrator, and rotate trays occasionally, for about 3-4 hours, or until the fruit is dried, but slightly tacky to the touch.
4. Remove them while still warm, and roll up in parchment paper.
5. Substitutions: use any berry instead of strawberries, like blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc.

At this point I only had one banana left, so I just made myself a quick smoothie for breakfast, with all the other frozen fruit I had in my collection.

And that was that, 10 more bananas saved from the doom of the garbage can – and me stocked up on quick easy breakfasts and snacks for a while! Also, I know it seems that this would take up a bunch of freezer space, but it really doesn't. Especially, if you bake or make smoothies often.

Those 4 bananas that I cut up and froze, will really only make me maybe a weeks worth of smoothies... Then I'll be on the hunt for more!

More brown banana recipes to come later!

Brown Bananas

These bananas have been sitting on my counter since the inception of this blog...

Which means they have been sitting there for far, far too long... But the problem is, my husband only eats almost green bananas, and I never thinking about eating bananas at all... So, they've just been sitting there, turning spotted, then mostly brown, then... brown brown.

Since this is literally the story of all of our bananas lives, I have an entire repertoire of things to do with them! I had all of these things in my head, that I was planning to do earlier this week, then a little later... and now, it was too late to do anything with them, other than mush them and be completely stereotypical and - make banana bread.

Now, I have never been the best at making banana bread (which is why I do so many OTHER things to do with brown bananas). It always turns out super tasty, but never cooks up quit right. Its usually a little dense, a little too moist or the top kinda burns... and I've always attributed this to the crummy electric ovens I am forced to use... but then this morning, it struck me... its proabably because I NEVER follow the recipes I find. It's not cause I don't want to - its usually because I THINK I have everything in the cupboard to make them, but come to find out I don't have even 2/3rds of what I need...

Joy of Baking's Banana Bread Recipe (found here) is my go to BASE recipe. Its SUPER forgiving and has lots of opportunities for substitutions, see that section below.

Super Forgiving Banana Bread 
Makes 1 - 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf

• 1 cup (115 grams) walnuts or pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped (optional) 
• 1 3/4 cups (230 grams) all-purpose flour 
• 3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated white sugar 
• 1 teaspoon baking powder 
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 
• 1/4 teaspoon salt 
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten 
• 1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled 
• 3 ripe large bananas (approximately 1 pound or 454 grams), mashed well (about 1-1/2 cups) 
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and place oven rack to middle position. Butter and flour (or spray with a non stick vegetable/flour spray) the bottom and sides of a 9 x 5 x 3 inch (23 x 13 x 8 cm) loaf pan. Set aside.
2. Place the nuts on a baking sheet and bake for about 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly toasted. Let cool and then chop coarsely. In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nuts. Set aside.
3. In a medium-sized bowl combine the mashed bananas, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla. With a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, lightly fold the wet ingredients (banana mixture) into the dry ingredients just until combined and the batter is thick and chunky. (The important thing is not to over mix the batter. You do not want it smooth. Over mixing the batter will yield tough, rubbery bread.)
4. Scrape batter into prepared pan. Bake until bread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 55 to 60 minutes. Place on a wire rack to cool and then remove the bread from the pan. Serve warm or at room temperature. This bread can be frozen.
5. Substitutions: Use any nut or chocolate chips or nothing. Use half whole wheat flour. Use half brown sugar or half sugar substitute (like Splenda). 1 tbls ground flax seed mixed with 2.5 tbls water can be used in place of an egg. Since this recipe calls for melted butter, you can use oil to substitute some or all of the butter - this time I used 1/2 coconut oil and melted it with the butter I had on hand. Lastly, if you don't quite have enough banana, use apple sauce or grated zucchini to make up the difference.

I made all of these substitutions this time, and it turned out exactly as I have come to expect: SUPER delicious, but too dense and moist. Luckily, this is what my husband has come to expect from my banana bread too - so he'll be happy.

Final note - though you can substitute just about anything in this banana bread recipe - I highly recommend not substituting EVERYTHING like I did.

I will have a list of awesome things to do with bananas in the near future - I promise.