Wow! Over eight pounds!

Doing something constructive with eight pounds of bananas turned out to be a lot easier than I expected. My friend picked them up as bargain bags at Limbo in SE Portland. As a side note, Limbo is awesome and definitely worth checking out.  Besides their produce, they have a long hallway of bulk spices and teas at really reasonable prices. When produce is headed towards the end of its sell-by life span, it is bagged up and sold for a pittance. Check the table in front of the shop on your way in.

I was a bit overwhelmed when she first gave them to me along with a half dozen bell peppers and several bags of chopped celery, but it didn’t take long before I felt up for the challenge. Ripe bananas are really versatile.

The first thing I did was bring the dehydrator out of hibernation and start slicing bananas.  I usually give bananas a quick dunk in lemon or pineapple juice before dehydration to cut down on discoloration, but since I didn’t have any on hand I improvised with a wash of lime juice, canola oil, and cinnamon. The canola oil is used to make it easier to pull the bananas off the trays, and the cinnamon was added because I add cinnamon to as many things as I can. The dehydrator was set to 135 degrees, and it will probably be at least another ten hours before they are ready.

The dehydrator has enough trays to handle all eight pounds of bananas, but I wanted to diversify a bit. I considered a lot of different desserts and breads, but ultimately decided on frozen banana treats.  These are inspired by those cute but ridiculously expensive chocolate covered ice cream bites in the grocer’s freezer section.

PLEASE READ FIRST! The recipe below is what I used, but I was not satisfied with the consistency of the chocolate. I completely winged it on the chocolate sauce, and probably would have had better results if I had started with an established recipe and altered it. But hey, this is my DIY project journal, and as such I need to document what didn’t work very well in addition to my successes. Proceed at your own risk.

Frozen Banana Treats The King Would Have Loved
5 ripe bananas
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 t vanilla (Use the real stuff. The artificial stuff should be banned.)
2 Tb butter
2 Tb honey
1 Tb cinnamon
1/4 cup peanut butter
Dash of sea salt
Dash of cayenne pepper

Cover a cookie sheet with waxed paper. I usually put a splash of water on the cookie sheet before putting down the paper because it helps to keep the paper in place. In a double boiler, melt the butter.  While waiting for the butter to melt, cut the bananas into 1/2″ slices and arrange them on the cookie sheet.

Add the remaining ingredients to the double boiler and stir until smooth and melty. Spoon the chocolate sauce onto the bananas. You may need to return the chocolate to the double boiler to re-warm it if it cools too quickly.

Put the tray of bananas in the freezer.  Once frozen, pull them off the tray and put them in an airtight container. Return them to the freezer until ready to serve.
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I was hoping for chocolate sauce that would essentially cover each banana slice, and wound up with dabs of chocolate on each slice. The end result is very tasty, but not very aesthetically pleasing.

Yep, it’s been a long time between posts. Between the oppressive heat and the magical appearance of a PS3 in our entertainment center, I haven’t been very craftily minded for the last month or so, with the exception of making Hot Garlic Dill Pickles (recipe courtesy of Ken Miller) after a trip to Kruger’s Farm on Sauvie Island. (Side note:  Beer in Mason Jars made by Captured By Porches = YUM!) 

Visited Jossy Farms and Sara’s Blueberries this weekend with the girls. Four women in a Subaru Outback with a ton of boxes and containers! Distracted on the way out to North Plains by a number of yard and estate sales, and had to stop and pick up more cash for fruit because we had blown all of our cash on garage sales.  Picked up fun fixings for the costumes I am crafting for Aaron and I to wear to the Portland Pirate Festival next month. Finally made it out to the farm.

At Jossy Farms, you get a little wagon and pull it through the orchard while you pick out your peaches, pears, or apples. This is a steal at eighty cents a pound, and it is so much fun to wander the rows. There is nothing like peaches right off the tree! My pears are sitting a few more days to finish ripening, but the peaches I picked were so perfectly ripe that they bruised a bit on the way home.

One of the gals also had her heart set on blueberries, even though it is the end of the season, and the folks at the farm gave us directions to Sara’s Blueberries. It is hidden behind a neighborhood of relatively new tract homes, and you would never know it was there unless you knew where you were going.  They have about an acre of blueberry bushes, and a pen of goats.  At $1.50/lb, again a steal!  I picked close to two pounds.

Once I got home, I started prepping to dehydrate the whole lot.  Here are the lessons I learned this weekend:

• More than blanching is needed for blueberries.  I tried drying them blanching only, and finally gave up after around 36 hours at 125 degrees.  Think I will try slicing them next time.  Read something about a water and vinegar rinse, too.
• Uniform slices for peaches (preferably thin) are best
• If the skin isn’t coming off the peach after it has been blanched, it is not ripe enough.
• Must remember to lightly oil the dehydrator trays before arranging the fruit.  Might also pick up some additional mesh liners, too.

While this batch of both fruits is delicious, it is not shelf stable, so I’ve given Aaron the directive that the fruit must be eaten within the next couple of days.  I had barely gotten the words “must be eaten” out of my mouth when he made a beeline for the kitchen to make Scottish oatmeal, which is an excellent base for dried fruit.