Bananarama
Bananas are currently favorite fruit. Not that I eat many of them. In fact I find unprocessed banana kind of disgusting with those stringy things left over after peeling, the inevitable development of brown mushy spots, and the peel dangling over all sides and touching everything like a toddler after eating a popsicle. Give me a choice and I’ll eat an apple over a banana. I think our dog agrees with me, though she’ll eat either. She also eats grass and licks the cats’ ears, so maybe the dog’s preferences aren’t relevant.
I have many reasons for liking bananas that have nothing to do with me eating them. I can always count on Ellie to eat one or two from a bunch. These bananas are very helpful for her nutritional intake because her other main source of fruit is the natural flavors in Starburst. Bananas are cheap, usually costing no more than $.49 per pound. They’re usually the cheapest fruit in the grocery store, making them the produce equivalent of Paris Hilton. If you can find a bag full of ripe bananas, they’re even cheaper, like that six-pound-plus bag of bananas I recently bought for $.99. That’s less than $.17 per pound, and I didn’t even have to use a coupon. Bananas last a long time on the shelf, usually more than a week, assuming I don’t buy the cheap ripe ones.
The banana fun really beings, though, when they turn ripe, and I mean good and ripe with black peels and soft mushy spots and strong banana aromas wafting forth and possibly banana juice oozing from the peel attracting little flies. When they hit this stage of ripeness, they’re easily mashed, like the dreams of Cub fans in September.* I take these super-ripe bananas, throw them in the blender with a little water, puree well, and end up with cheap baby food. I have a whole system of ice cube trays ready to freeze the banana puree for easy dispensing. Abbie loves bananas and eats them almost everyday, making them one of her most consumed items along with applesauce, chicken, and rocks. Of course I can only store so many banana cubes in the freezer at one time, so I take my excess super-ripe bananas and use them to make banana bread. I made a double batch of banana bread the other day with the remnants of my six-plus-pound bag of ripe bananas. Abbie obliged my endeavor by playing nicely in her room for the excessive time I spent mixing. One loaf was for Ellie using her fantastic family recipe that contains sour cream for an extra touch of tart to go with the fat and sugar. The other loaf was for me using every known substitution to cut fat and calories to a minimum without affecting the taste, much. I substitute Splenda for sugar, egg whites for whole egg, applesauce for butter,** and flour-flavored Wheatamine for the flour,*** and end up with a delicious bread that uses up our spare bananas and cuts calories so drastically that I can afford to dump half a bag of chocolate chips in the mix. The texture isn’t quite right, and sometimes I get that Splenda aftertaste, but otherwise I can’t tell the difference. Just because the dog refuses to eat it doesn’t mean it’s not edible.
* If not sooner.
** Really
*** Not really
I have many reasons for liking bananas that have nothing to do with me eating them. I can always count on Ellie to eat one or two from a bunch. These bananas are very helpful for her nutritional intake because her other main source of fruit is the natural flavors in Starburst. Bananas are cheap, usually costing no more than $.49 per pound. They’re usually the cheapest fruit in the grocery store, making them the produce equivalent of Paris Hilton. If you can find a bag full of ripe bananas, they’re even cheaper, like that six-pound-plus bag of bananas I recently bought for $.99. That’s less than $.17 per pound, and I didn’t even have to use a coupon. Bananas last a long time on the shelf, usually more than a week, assuming I don’t buy the cheap ripe ones.
The banana fun really beings, though, when they turn ripe, and I mean good and ripe with black peels and soft mushy spots and strong banana aromas wafting forth and possibly banana juice oozing from the peel attracting little flies. When they hit this stage of ripeness, they’re easily mashed, like the dreams of Cub fans in September.* I take these super-ripe bananas, throw them in the blender with a little water, puree well, and end up with cheap baby food. I have a whole system of ice cube trays ready to freeze the banana puree for easy dispensing. Abbie loves bananas and eats them almost everyday, making them one of her most consumed items along with applesauce, chicken, and rocks. Of course I can only store so many banana cubes in the freezer at one time, so I take my excess super-ripe bananas and use them to make banana bread. I made a double batch of banana bread the other day with the remnants of my six-plus-pound bag of ripe bananas. Abbie obliged my endeavor by playing nicely in her room for the excessive time I spent mixing. One loaf was for Ellie using her fantastic family recipe that contains sour cream for an extra touch of tart to go with the fat and sugar. The other loaf was for me using every known substitution to cut fat and calories to a minimum without affecting the taste, much. I substitute Splenda for sugar, egg whites for whole egg, applesauce for butter,** and flour-flavored Wheatamine for the flour,*** and end up with a delicious bread that uses up our spare bananas and cuts calories so drastically that I can afford to dump half a bag of chocolate chips in the mix. The texture isn’t quite right, and sometimes I get that Splenda aftertaste, but otherwise I can’t tell the difference. Just because the dog refuses to eat it doesn’t mean it’s not edible.
* If not sooner.
** Really
*** Not really
posted by Matt at
9:18 PM
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