Welcome once again to Cooking With Bwog, dedicated to providing quality, cheap, healthy, and easy recipes to make your meal-plan-free life as tasty as possible. If you have any amazing cooking secrets you’d like to share or questions for the Bwog Culinary Team, please email bwgossip@columbia.edu. This week’s feature is the tasty banana: bread, fried, paste, and secrets for keeping ’em ripe.

Really Easy Banana Bread

Prep time: 15 min      Bake Time: 1 Hour

Ingredients: 5 ripe bananas ($1), 1 box of yellow cake mix ($2.50), 3 eggs ($1) or 1.5 cups apple sauce ($1.50), vanilla, nuts, and raisins if you want them, and something to grease the pan with (butter or oil).

Supplies: spoon, bowl, oven, loaf pan

Banana Bread, Fried Bananas, Banana Paste, and Preservation Tips after the jump…

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In bowl, mash the bananas and add cake mix, eggs/apple sauce, and the optional ingredients. Mix them up really well. If you have an electric mixer, use that for 2 minutes, if not, just mix until it’s not lumpy. If you have to, add a bit of water to thin.

3. Grease the pan and pour the batter in it. Bake for an hour or until it appears done.

Fried bananas:

Ingredients: 1 not-so-ripe banana (20 cents), butter

Prep time: 10 minutes

Supplies: Frying pan, stove top, knife, something to stir and flip banana slices while cooking

1. Cut banana  either length-wise or horizontally, making sure that slices are at least 0.5 cm thick.

2. Melt 1 tbsp of butter in frying pan at medium heat. You should have enough butter in the pan to form a butter puddle. Add the bananas and allow them to cook until a bit browned. They should turn too mushy.

These are good to eat alone, with ice cream or pancakes, and with other fruit.

Banana paste: A good topping for many things 

Ingredients: 1 ripe banana (20 cents), optional seasonings *, 1 tablespoon of butter, water

Prep time: 15 minutes

Supplies: Stove top, sauce pan, bowl, fork 

1. Mash your banana in a bowl using a fork. It should be relatively un-lumpy.

2. Mix in one of the options below.

3. Pour into a sauce pan and add butter. Heat on medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring and adding water when it gets dry. You’ll probably have to add water about 3 times. It’s done when the banana starts to break down and homogenize.

*Optional Seasonings:

Red pepper to taste in the banana paste, served over rice

Brown sugar (1/3 cup) in the banana paste, served over pancakes or ice cream

Chocolate chips or syrup, served over ice cream

Berries, mango,  nuts to put over sorbet

 

Banana preservation and ripening tips:

1. To quicken ripening: peel bananas, stick ’em on a plate in the oven at 450 degrees for about 10-15 minutes.

2. To prevent sliced bananas from turning brown: dip them in white wine before putting into fruit salads or tarts. The wine won’t affect the flavor.

3. Keeping mashed banana from turning brown: Put 2 or 3 in a ziploc baggy, suck the air out of the bag, and seal it. Mash the bananas with a hand and store in a freezer or fridge until you want to use them. They don’t turn brown because there’s no oxygen in the bag!

 Thanks to “How to Break an Egg” and www.cooks.com for the bread and preservation ideas.