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!

Surplus: Loquats

Another goal of this blog is to help deal with surpluses. One of the great things about having a garden, or working in a farmstand, or finding produce on sale, is that you have access to great food! The problem, there is only a very short window of time to get that food and often you have A TON of one specific kind.

This happened to me the other day when a lady, one of my customers at the stand, brought me an entire box of loquats! We had been talking about them one day, and she brought me the box the next day. I seriously almost cried with joy when I saw it. For some reason, the fact that she had labeled the box for me made it just that much better.

 

 I must’ve eaten 20 the first day. Then when I brought them home, my husband had another 10. The next day, I was still staring at an entire box of loquats.

 

Loquats are a little weird, they don’t have that much flavor other than a delicious light sweetness. They have a very high water content. Not much fruit, and huge seeds. What to do… what to do…

Then, my husband suggested we make jam. I can’t tell you how much I love this man.

 

 A little bit of googling and four recipes later, I had a plan. The base recipe I used can be found here, but it wasn’t to my standard (or my mom’s) for food safety, so I modified it a bit.

 

Loquat Jellam

Ingredients:

• 6 cups loquats, pitted and skinned
• 7 cups sugar
• ¼ cup lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon butter
• 1 package Sure Jell (the yellow box)

Directions:

1. Sterilize your jars and lids. Get a big pot of water boiling, for the canning process.
2. Add the lemon juice to a bowl of 1-2 quarts of water. Wash the loquats well, peel the skin off with your fingers, then cut the fruit off in long skinny chunks. In a way much like taking long strips of zest off a lime. Discard the skin and cores/seeds. Place the fruit into the bowl of water as you get it, keeps it from turning brown.
3. When done, drain the water, and use a stick blender (or a normal blender) to blend up the fruit. Don’t puree, but get pretty close. You’ll need exactly six cups of loquat. At this point, pour boiling water over your lids (the part with the pop top and seal), and let sit until you need them.
4. Then follow the directions on the sure jell package for cooked jam. Basically, in a large pot, mix the loquat and pectin. Bring to a boil, stirring often. Just at a boil, mix in the butter and all the sugar at once. Bring back to a boil, stirring frequently, and boil for exactly one minute.
5. Pour the mixture into your jars – will make 9 cups of jellam or so. With lids on hand tight, process the jars in the boiling water for 10 minutes.
6. Substitutions: This fruit/sugar recipe is specifically for loquats – but jam can be made of just about anything!

My jellam came out a little runny – half way between jam and syrup, so good for both purposes. It’s very similar in flavor and color to apricot jam. I love it. Plus, the best part, this recipe used up the whole box of loquats.

 

 

So far I have put this stuff to many uses. We got some orange chicken the other day from an Asian restaurant and it was WAY TOO SPICY (and I love myself some spicy), so when I reheated the leftovers I poured a couple tablespoons of this jellam over it and sautéed till warmed through - delicious! We've also used it over pancakes, instead of maple syrup and on toasted English muffins over cream cheese. Versatile and delicious!!