Fruit of the Day: Bananas, yep, bananas

Mmm... bananas.
Don't give up on me yet. I know, bananas may not seem exotic and exciting--but this fruit of the day ends with the most delightful miserly moment of my very frugal life.

But first, bananas:

Bananas are great. Here, we have access to lots of different types of bananas including these tiny 'lil two bite bananas that are my very favorite. They are great because they stay really firm even when they are fully ripe. And look how cute and tiny they are!

Here are some other varieties I really like. The short fat ones are very very sweet compared with the grocery store bananas I used to know. The red ones, well, just look--they're red! Even the fruit inside is slightly orange-y pink.

wow. blurry AND badly lit. Well, just take my word for it. It's kinda orange-y pink, o.k.?

There are bunches of other kinds of bananas around here,(ha ha! "bunches", get it?!) including one that has three sides and one called "apple banana" that really does taste a bit like apple. (But it's not really time for those right now, so no pictures for you.) 

And then there are plantains. 

You probably know that plantains and bananas are not used in the same ways, but if you have some friends/enemies who don't know better, offer them a raw plantain to eat. HI-larious! No, really, it's a great party game: "bet-you-can't-eat-more-than-two-bites-of raw-plantain"

DISCLAIMER: **I do not know if there are negative health repercussions from excessive eating of raw plantain. I know that they are so hard and tanic that you probably can't chew them up and that when visitors here buy them for a snack they make humorous faces and end up spitting them out. I tried to check WebMD for symptoms related to raw plantain exposure, but of course, it just said "may be cancer" so I leave you to your own reserach**

Plantains can be cooked in many ways, and are used similarly to potatoes. They can be eaten when green, mature, or even when the skin is completely black. At this stage of ripeness they are still very very firm and removing the tough peeling requires you at least begin with a knife.  

My favorite thing to do with green plantains is to make tostones, a thick fried cake that is a terrific vehicle for piling good stuff like beans on.

Slice your plantains into chunks, fry for about 2 minutes until they lighten a bit and are soft enough to smash. Smash with a spoon, and it's back into the pan to crisp up. Traditionally you'd fry in oil both times, but sometimes I only use oil for the first fry and crisp up in a plain skillet. (insider tip: boiling will not work for this application. Ask my sticky gooey countertops how I know.)

Mmm...pile some onions and peppers on there, maybe some mashed beans, and dinner is done!

Even plantains come in a wide variety of types. Check out these weird, triangle potato plantains.
(I doubt that is their botanical name.)

A "bunch" of bananas here, refers to the whole hundred pound grouping that grows on the stalk. The amount a person would normally buy in a grocery store is usually called a "hand". Banana stalks are perennial, (you know, complete life cycle and die in one year) which is kind of amazing when you think how gigantic they are. It's been a blast having a banana in our yard, you can literally see a four foot long leaf grow in a single day. The bunch of fruit (well, berries for you science-y folk) grows very slowly from a huge alien looking flower, and did you remember that it can weigh a hundred pounds? Amazing. I could go on and on with facts about bananas, except I don't really know anything else about them. Besides, I promised at the beginning to reveal my most gloriously penny-pinching moment of all time.

O.K. Here it is. 

Wait, lemme back up a bit. 

Some of you have noticed that I really really enjoy being cheap. Particularly when it comes to food. I delight in figuring out ways to repurpose food that was destined for the dump into something good to eat. Yes, I've probably made some of you blush when I carried bones home from your house. (But come on, are you STILL not making bone broth? It is so delicious!) I realize that some people delight in savoring the finest ingredients, while I come from a family that gleefully served my new husband "road kill" on his first visit. (yes, really).

But even for me: this was pretty cheap. 
I made banana bread. 

Doesn't sound that weird to you? Well, I made it out of other old gross bread! No fresh flour at all. I saved up all the old dead biscuits, broken tortillas and dried up crusts of poorly executed sourdough bread I had made that week, ground them up and used them in place of actual dry ingredients to make the softest, sweetest, most delicious (albeit kinda dark looking) banana cranberry bread. And then I danced a weird little hopping jig all around the house like some fairy tail troll who has swindled the protagonist giggling at my cheapness and insisting: "Eat some! eat some! It's bread inception!" while Jonathan looked on slightly wide-eyed and for some reason started looking up phone numbers for mental health workers. 

Yep! Bananas. They can make most anything edible!