What to do with 50 bananas?

Hi all--

Not quite as exciting as having 150 Vosges truffles, but I have come into possession of about 50 bananas that are just about ripe (a few brown spots). What can I do with them? I made some chocolate covered bananas this morning, but that was a fair amount of work and I only used up 5. I would like to use these to make something I can serve to a group of about 40 college students in the New Year.

Can I freeze and then puree? Puree and then freeze? Let get overripe before freezing? Make a giant pudding? Any other ideas?

Patrick

Peel then freeze. Then use for smoothies, or anything else.

Banana muffins, banana bread, oatmeal topping, yogurt topping with granola, slice and freeze for smoothies(as previously recommended), puree used to sweeten other stuff...etc, etc, etc. Oh, also waffle toppings and in pancakes.

Hi,

I tend to freeze them in their skins. When they thaw, they slip right out.

I have a recipe for banana jam I have never made.

Regards,

I'd run across this article a while back- a guy had a case of slightly brown bananas. There's also a link for frozen bananas in the article.

One caveat: I've found that if you freeze bananas, they will be considerably more watery and looser in texture when thawed, and also will brown. I'd drain them before using them for baking, but they may discolor smoothies a bit. Banana pudding uses up a lot of bananas quickly, and is one of those simple, old-fashioned recipes that's good even if it contains a lot of processed stuff: Vanilla wafers (I usually use graham crackers) banana slices, vanilla pudding, whipped cream. Layer. Serve.

If I had a lot of bananas to experiment with and didn't mind losing a few to a learning curve, I'd try making dried banana chips. Googling reveals a number of recipes, and you can chop and use them in breads, cereals, etc. later. University of Arkansas has a recipe (this is a PDF, so you'll have to cut and paste it into your browser: polk.ifas.ufl.edu/JTompkins/recipes/Dried_Bananas.pdf ) for both oven-baked and frozen banana chips.

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,
I have a recipe for banana jam I have never made.

Hi Cathy,

If you could post this recipe, that would be greatly appreciated.

As a fan of Jufran banana sauce on my PB sandwiches, I have once tried to make a "banana jam" in a similar vein with only marginal success. I'd like to give a traditional banana jam a whirl and then maybe see if it can be modified into a spicier more savoury blend.

Thanks,

Nab

Thanks for all the quick replies. I like the idea of banana chips; I think I will try that with 5-10 of the bananas. I may also try the Frozen banana cream on the site linked by MHays. Seems all I have do right now is let the bananas get ripe and then peel slice and freeze and then I can process them with the other ingredients in the New Year when the students return. No need for an ice cream maker either.

The current issue of Cook's Illustrated has a fascinating take on banana bread. They make a single loaf that uses six (!) bananas--five in the batter and one sliced on top. What makes the recipe unique is that they drain the excess water out of the bananas first, either by draining thawed frozen bananas or microwaving fresh ones and then draining them. The resulting juice is then cooked down to a syrup, which is added back into the batter.

I've made the recipe. I'll never go back to doing it any other way.

The recipe is available on the Cooks Illustrated website, but behind the log-in screen. A good excuse to pick up the magazine, pay-up for on-line access, or, at the very least, take the free 14 day look.

Dress them up in tiny swimsuits and act out the Miss Banana America pageant.

What? Oh, right, I'm sure I'm the only one who does that.

banana oatmeal, banana pancake (sauteed banana inside and carmelized banana outside), banana-peanut butter sandwich, banana ice cream

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

I tend to freeze them in their skins. When they thaw, they slip right out.

I also freeze them in their skins, but as I often like to use them frozen (for smoothies) I simply hold them under hot running water for a minute or so, and the skin and stringy bits slide right off.

Buy a monkey

Interesting that this thread should pop up today: I am again cooking for a friend who is undergoing chemo, and wanted to find something soothing yet wholesome. I don't know the specifics of her cancer diet, so I looked up generalities: many chemo diets avoid dairy, and avoid "coarse" whole grains (no whole wheat, no brown rice, etc.) and bland, soft foods are a plus. I did a bit of googling and came up with a version of a Thai banana dessert, khao niao kluai (Sticky Rice with Banana)

I was concerned about the high-fat content of more traditional coconut milk in this instance, and I couldn't find rice milk (and soy milk has other concerns for me in this case) so I did an awful lot of substituting: Silk almond milk, candied ginger bits instead of nutmeg, half a vanilla bean, and I had arborio rice and demerara sugar on hand, so that's what I used.

I dumped it all in the slow cooker, along with my thawed frozen bananas, gave it a thorough stir, and cooked it for a few hours on high. It did tend to curdle around the edges, (this was fixed by adding more almond milk; it did come out a bit thicker than I preferred) so in future, I'd cook on low - but the result was creamy and delicious. I think my friend will appreciate it.

[quote="Mhays"]Interesting that this thread should pop up today: I am again cooking for a friend who is undergoing chemo, and wanted to find something soothing yet wholesome. I don't know the specifics of her cancer diet, so I looked up generalities: many chemo diets avoid dairy, and avoid "coarse" whole grains (no whole wheat, no brown rice, etc.) and bland, soft foods are a plus. I did a bit of googling and came up with a version of a Thai banana dessert, khao niao kluai (Sticky Rice with Banana)

I wish I liked cooked bananas that sounds pretty good. Hmmm, although it does make me think of doing a rice pudding with coconut milk. ( mind you I'm not a fan of rice pudding either)

banana ice cream

. . . in particular, David Lebovitz's roasted banana ice cream, from his excellent and funny book, The Perfect Scoop. This version from his website also uses coconut milk . . .and dark rum. . . mmmmmmmmmmm

Make two batches - that will use up a dozen bananas, and in the best possible way!

pairs4life wrote:

Mhays wrote:Interesting that this thread should pop up today: I am again cooking for a friend who is undergoing chemo, and wanted to find something soothing yet wholesome. I don't know the specifics of her cancer diet, so I looked up generalities: many chemo diets avoid dairy, and avoid "coarse" whole grains (no whole wheat, no brown rice, etc.) and bland, soft foods are a plus. I did a bit of googling and came up with a version of a Thai banana dessert, khao niao kluai (Sticky Rice with Banana)

I wish I liked cooked bananas that sounds pretty good. Hmmm, although it does make me think of doing a rice pudding with coconut milk. ( mind you I'm not a fan of rice pudding either)

Pairs, I can't help you with the rice pudding part (it's definitely a rice pudding) but to me, this didn't have the syrup-y, oozy quality of cooked bananas - the texture was indistinguishable from the rice; it just had the flavor of bananas (some might prefer it sweeter, too.) As an interesting aside, they had manzano bananas at Marketplace on Oakton, so I diced one & tossed it in, too - gave a bit of texture.

If you're planning to do just the pudding - you may as well go all the way and do Khao Niaow Ma Muang or sticky rice with Mango - I loved the instructions on the linked recipe. There's also the Thai rice-banana-tamale-thing, khanom thian.

Ann Fisher wrote:The current issue of Cook's Illustrated has a fascinating take on banana bread. They make a single loaf that uses six (!) bananas--five in the batter and one sliced on top

Hi Ann--

I just found the last ten bananas in the back of my freezer and I remembered this post. So I logged into CI and made two batches of their recipe. I'm with you: I'm never going back to the old two-banana breads. This is fabulous banana bread: moist and intensely banana-y. It works great with frozen bananas (which they address in the recipe) since you can skip the microwaving step as frozen bananas naturally throw off plenty of liquid when thawing.

Patrick