I'm Going Bananas!

I have literally, pounds of over-ripe bananas in my freezer. I buy bananas with the very good intention of eating them, but I’m a picky banana eater. They have to be perfect. I like them yellow. Not yellow with green…not yellow with brown spots. Just yellow. This leaves me a window of approximately 15 minutes in the life of a banana. Why I ever buy more than one at a time is really unclear. They get too ripe, I don't eat them and they end up in the freezer. This week in a ProChef Smart Brief they published an article that was originally in the Chicago Tribune written by Monica Kass Rogers (See the link below). In it she highlights a number of banana recipes,that all sound amazing! Finally…something more to do with bananas than banana bread! Which if I do say so myself, my recipe is really good, thanks to Betty Crocker Cookbook circa the 1970’s. The book and recipe has been updated since, but at my house we don’t stray from the 70’s version…but speaking of the 70’s and retro recipes it’s amazing how simple and delicious some banana recipes are, like banana bread and banana pudding and how far some chef’s have taken them! Tony Maws who is the chef at a Cambridge, MA restaurant called Craigie takes that same banana pudding recipe and turns it into sour-milk panna cotta with muscovado sugar-banana puree, cashew-coriander granola and brown butter dust! That’s a far cry from Nilla Wafers, Cool Whip, bananas and pudding! Want to see some more and check out a few great recipes? Check out the article, here! pic from www.sxc.hu

I almost forgot!! You know what else goes great with bananas...? Chocolate chips! Barry Callebaut announced at the “All Things Baking” show a brand new 50,000 count chocolate chip! Hooray for the mini’s! Thanks to it’s teeny tiny size, it fits through piping tips and manufacturing equipment! Read more here.