In this episode, Kathy discusses how to freeze bananas. Then she shares a recipe for using those frozen bananas and how to make blueberry banana muffins!
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Recipes
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Recipes mentioned in this podcast:
In this episode you'll learn:
- Tips for freezing a whole banana with the peel
- How to freeze banana slices
- Ideas for using frozen bananas
- How to make blueberry banana muffins
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Transcript
Hello. Welcome back to the pantry. Have you ever had bananas on your counter go from green to all of a sudden over ripe and ready to use for banana bread? It seems to happen to me all the time. I love bananas when they're at that perfect ripeness to eat, and it seems to be a little bit different for everyone.
But then all of a sudden I look and those bananas are almost ready to go bad. They're getting so dark and overripe. That's the perfect time to use them in baking. I use bananas all the time In baking. I have oatmeal banana muffins, blueberry banana muffins, a blueberry banana coffee cake. I have a quinoa banana bread.
Lots of recipes and ways to use bananas, but sometimes those bananas are totally ripe. and I don't have time to bake. So then what I do, instead of letting those bananas go to waste, is I just take those whole bananas, peel and all, and pop them right into the freezer. I don't even put them in a bag. It gives me time to use those bananas later, and it really works really well.
So what I do is just pop those in the freezer, and then when I'm ready to bake or have time to bake, I pull those bananas out and I let them thaw. They actually thaw fairly quickly. Now the bananas are gonna be black. They're gonna look awful, but they're totally good. So don't let that worry you. I pull those bananas out, let them thaw, and then slip them out of their skins.
The bananas are gonna be almost like they're already been mashed up. They're really, really soft. They're perfect for using in banana breads, and I use them for that all the time. Another way to freeze those bananas is to take them out of the peel, slice them into chunks, place them on a baking sheet line with a silicone mat so that they don't stick to the baking sheet.
Put that whole baking tray in the freezer. And when those bananas are frozen, you'll take it out. Take the bananas off of the baking sheet and then put them into a zip top bag and just put them back in the freezer and let, make sure you label and date those. And I use those a lot for popping into my smoothies.
I love just mixing up a variety of frozen fruits like bananas, raspberries, blueberries, huckleberries. And then I also add usually a handful of spinach, sometimes a carrot, yogurt, and I just mix that all together. Untilt, it's nice and pureed and the fruit keeps everything really sweet. The veggies give me extra nutrients that I need, and it's a great way to start the day.
Let's go back to those whole bananas I talked about how I've froze those for banana bread. I wanna share with you a, a recipe that I use those frozen bananas for. I take those bananas out of the freezer, and once they're soft enough, I slip the skins off and those bananas are already soft and mushy. I'll need about three bananas for this recipe, which makes about one cup of mashed bananas.
For this recipe, it's for blueberry banana muffins. You'll need three quarters of a cup of brown sugar. A half a cup of milk, two eggs, a quarter cup of oil, canola, vegetable oil, or any light tasting oil. Whatever you have and what you use is fine. A teaspoon of vanilla, a cup of those bananas. Now you can also use just regular bananas that haven't been frozen, but this is a great recipe to use those frozen bananas on two cups of all-purpose.
A tablespoon of baking powder, half teaspoon of salt, a half teaspoon of ground cinnamon, quarter teaspoon of ground nutmeg, one and a half cups of blueberries. You can use fresh blueberries. You can also use frozen blueberries. And then to finish them all off. I like to use a tablespoon of coarse sparkling sugar.
This is totally optional, but it gives a nice crunchy top to that, and it keeps them a little bit sparkly and it just makes them taste like a bakery style muffin.
You combine the brown sugar, milk, eggs, oil, and vanilla, and a bowl, and I just mix it all together. I add the mash bananas. And then I add the flour baking powder, salt, cinnamon right on top.
And what I do so that I don't have to use an extra bowl, is I put all of those dry ingredients right on top and I start stirring those together first, and then so that they start to get incorporated together, and then I mix it into that wet mixture. Once everything is just slightly moistened, I fold in the blueberries.
I like to use an ice cream scoop to scoop my batter into my muffin tins. I typically don't use the paper liners, but you can. And if you don't use the paper liners to spray your muffin tin lightly with a non-stick spray, scoop the batter into the muffin. I sprinkle with a coarse sugar and then pop these into the oven.
They will bake in a 375 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 18 to 20 minutes. If you're using the frozen blueberries, you'll add about oh three to five minutes of extra baking time to those muffins. Once I pull them out, I set the whole tray on a baking rack and I let it cool for. I don't know, maybe two to three minutes, sometimes up to five minutes.
And then I take them out of the muffin tint and I set them on the baking rack until they're fully cooled. These are muffins that are great that you can eat while they're still warm, but if once they're fully cool, just package them into an airtight container and store them at room temperature for three to five days.
You can also freeze these muffins, which will even make them last longer, and just pull out one or two muffins whenever you need a muffin. And they're good too. So give it a try with freezing the bananas, and I want you to make these blueberry banana muffins and let me know what you think they're favorite in our house, and I'm sure they'll be in yours too.
Bye.
Thanks for listening and be sure to tune in again next week for more episodes of Preserving the Pantry.
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