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!

One Squash – Many, Many Meals

I was at work the other day I saw the most beautiful butternut squash! I had no plan for it, I just had to own it. Now its a few days later and the question remains… What to make into for dinner… Looking in my fridge – I found some old wanton wrappers I bought a few weeks ago at the Asian market, some second-hand ricotta cheese (my friend bought it, and hated it! Score for me!) and some wilty spinach. Hmmmm…. RAVIOLI!

After web searching a bunch of butternut squash ravioli recipe – I looked in my fridge again, pulled out even more stuff, and made up my own. Here it is:

Butternut Squash Ravioli

Ingredients:

• 1 cup mashed, roasted butternut squash
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 pinch chili powder
• 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
• about 1/4 cup squash soup (or omit… though read below)
• 1 egg (yolk and white separated)
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• about a 2/3 (14 ounce) package wonton wrappers
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 clove garlic, cut in quarters
• chopped fresh or 1/2 tsp of dried sage
• 1 cup baby spinach, chopped

Directions:

1. Mush together the butternut squash, salt, black pepper, chili powder, ricotta, soup, egg yolk, and Parmesan cheese. Mixing until the filling is well combined.
2. Get the wonton wrappers, the egg white and a cutting board. Put a wrapper on the cutting board, wet your finger with the egg white, and run it all along the outer edge of the wonton skin to moisten. Place about 1 teaspoon of filling in the center of the wonton. Then fold the wonton in half, matching up the tips, and press the edges to seal. Do over and over again until you run out of something (if it’s the egg white, use water instead).
3. When all the ravioli are made, put a pot of water on to boil, then put a frying pan over medium heat, with the butter and garlic. Add the sage to the pan just as the butter completely melts. As the butter turns golden add the spinach, as soon as it wilts take the pan off the heat.
4. Drop the raviolis into the boiling water, a few at a time, and cook until they float to the top, then plus a minute, about 3 minutes total. Drain the raviolis, then put them in the pan with the butter. Turn the heat up to medium-high, and sauté the raviolis for about a minute a side.  
5. Put everything on a plate and swoon at your great use of fridge contents!

Substitutions: use any kind of squash (if using spaghetti squash, just blend it first). Use mascarpone or greek yogurt instead of ricotta. Omit the egg if necessary and use water to seal the wrappers. Use any (or no) greens at the end. If the filling seems a little dry, and you don’t have soup, try a dash of cinnamon (a VERY SMALL AMOUNT) and a splash of milk. 

Ok... the downside (for me anyways) – this recipe makes like 26 ravioli AND only used half the squash… I personally can only eat 8 ravioli at a time – so I froze the rest. Just put all the fresh leftovers (uncooked) in one layer, on a pan lined with parchment paper, and freeze. Once frozen solid, move them to an airtight bag. To re-cook, just take out the number you want an half hour or so before dinner, let them thaw, then cook as above, plus maybe a minute.

I’ll figure out what to do with the leftover squash a little later… I’m thinking soup. OH! The soup addition! Its amazing! The Pacific soup I used is really thin and has a hint of cinnamon and sweetness. It was a delicious addition. I actually got the idea because the carton of soup suggested it (and it was a good way to use up just a little more of the carton). 

Until next time! Chow! Heheh.

Welcome!

Cooking New Life into Old Food.

This may sound like an odd concept – old food isn’t exactly something people want to do much with, other than throw away, of course. But just because something is old, bruised, partially bad, leftover or a little stale, doesn’t mean it isn’t wonderfully (and often surprisingly) useful! The goal of this blog is exactly as its title states – to cook new life into old food – that is, to take food items that may be past their prime, ugly, in surplus, or seemingly worthless, and turn them into something valuable and/or delicious. 

I realized the potential of imperfect food when I got a job in a market about a year ago. We had a small produce section – it was always overstocked and under-bought. Each day, it was my job to go through the section and get the ‘ugly’ produce off the shelves. This would be a potato with too many eyes growing on it, an apple that had a bruise on one side or a bunch of green onions that the tops were getting slimy. You know, the produce that no person – in a grocery store – would want to pay full price for (which, by the way I TOTALLY understand). The first day, I did what the owners had always done – tossed it all in the garbage. The second day, I asked if I could take some of it home. The answer was “Sure.” as it was already loss in the stores eye. 

I’ve since moved away from that market, and moved right into another. This one is a farm stand, with an organic, farmers market flare. Organic, farm fresh flare means short shelf life, which means I have a fridge full of old, imperfect produce again. YAY!

The last thing, that brought me to this point in my life, is that I usually cook just for me. I have a husband, but he rarely eats at home because of his job, and we don’t have any kids. This means, when I buy a head of kale – I have to be 100% committed to kale for the week, or it starts to go bad because I just can’t finish it. So, I’ve had to get creative. I’ve had to find a way to work around the parts of things that have gone bad or have had to find a way to preserve the items BEFORE they go or find a way to use them in a way that won’t TASTE like them. It’s turned into a bit of a challenge. A challenge that I’ve embraced and now want to pass onto others: Don’t throw it away! Figure out what you can do with it!

Note: This is not a dumpster diving, trash to table blog. I won’t give any advice or recipe that could be harmful or cause illness. Take these posts as points of reference, not gospel. Do only what you are comfortable doing. However, remember, I wrote the blog the next day most likely, and I was still alive and well enough to write about it! I want to do my part change the crazy wasteful mindset us here in the USA tend to have. If I can save just one spotted apple or brown banana from going in the trash, well then, I’ve done my job.