Fun With Food

Remember when bananas came with a strip of colored tape around the bunch? There's a store here that sells them that way. They are riper when you buy them here, too, and they get even riper really fast, so I usually slice them up and freeze them. Then I can just drop a few slices in my oatmeal.

I was at a different store, though, the other day...couldn't get to my favorite one because the road was closed....and I really needed bananas for my oatmeal so I grabbed this package of peeled bananas. I didn't really pay attention to the label, I just thought it was a strange way to sell them. At home I got ready to slice them for the freezer, and grabbed one to take a bite. Aaack! Then I read the label. Guineos verdes. Green bananas. They were a little bit crunchy, with not much flavor. Sort of starchy. Not very good to just eat. Or in oatmeal. So for lunch today I sliced up a couple and fried them in butter with salt. They were okay.

I made beef stew the other day. I didn't have bay leaves or pepper or the browning sauce I always use, and I didn't have flour or cornstarch for thickening. I used pancake mix for the flour. Of course, the mix has baking soda in it, so my stew was foaming for awhile, but that's all right. It wasn't the best stew by any means. Kind of pale and weak. So tonight I made stew again. I now have bay leaves and pepper. I forced myself to take the time to brown the meat properly, so it turned out a better color. And...I cut up some of those bananas to use instead of potatoes. Much better stew. I can barely tell that the potatoes are really bananas.

I like to keep some cans of soup in the pantry, but the selection here is sparse. I haven't even found cream of mushroom. So I'm looking at the shelf and I see cream of beans in a can. The ingredients were creamed red beans, sugar, and cinnamon. I don't know if it's supposed to be soup or some kind of sauce, but I got it to try. It's very thin, with a good flavor, but it's too sweet to eat much of. I think I will try mixing it in with a quick bread recipe and see what happens.

So I have not been able to find cream of mushroom soup, chocolate chips, Hamburger Helper, old-fashioned oats, or green chilies in a can. Funny what you take for granted.