 I’m not just a huge banana fan – the only time I crave them is when my potassium gets low from drinking too much water. I know exactly when that’s happening. I’ll be standng in the checkout line at the grocery and I’ll see bananas displayed in the middle of the isle. I will think to myself, “I’ve gotta have those!!” And after my purchase, I then I lovingly cradle them in my arms like a baby, get into the car and start peeling those suckers, wolfing them down while I am driving. One of these days, I’ll have a wreck and the police officer will say, “You were on your cell phone, weren’t you?!!” But the police report will indicate, “Under the influence of bananas.” I like banana bread and banana muffins and banana/nut scones. I love Bananas Foster – hmmm – now there’s a recipe I need to put on here! – and I like to munch on my dehydrated bananas. So this past weekend, I spent most of the time dehydrating a BUNCH (pun intended!!) of bananas. I thought I’d share with you my way of doing that.  I found bananas on sale at 5 lbs for $1. Yep. Can you believe it?? So, I bought 15 lbs. I mean, that’s a whopping $3 so I HAD to buy them, right? And I used a large bottle of lemon juice.  First, I sliced the bananas into a bowl with 2 cups of bottled lemon juice. I always wind up adding a little more juice to nearly cover the bananas. I use a huge slotted spoon to toss the bananas around in the juice to make sure they all get covered. Allow to stand in the juice for 5 minutes.  Sprinkle 1/8 – 1/4 cup of sugar over the bananas and toss. It just depends on your taste. After drying, your bananas are going to be like sweet/sour banana candy. You can use Xylitol instead of sugar.  Using a large slotted spoon, scoop bananas out of the juice and allow to drain. Pour the banana slices onto dehydrator racks.  Arrange slices onto the trays so that none of them overlap. Dehydrate for 15 – 24 hours depending on how pliable you wish your slices. The longer you dehydrate, the less pliable. They will not be crispy, crispy like those in the store but the flavor is phenomenal!  Mr. Fix-It loves the crispy banana chips that can be bought at the store. So I decided to experiment beyond my usual way of doing things. I wasn’t impressed at all. According to all I read, the commercial banana chips are actually deep fried in coconut oil and then dipped into a sugar syrup to be dried. Sooooo, I tried it. I’m never one to shy away from a challenge!  I made a syrup of 2 cups of water to 1/2 cup of sugar that was brought to a boil and then cooled. When the bananas came out of the grease, they were drained, put back into a large bowl and the syrup was poured over the top of them. I then drained them with the large slotted spoon and placed them onto dehydrator trays as shown above and then dried. I’m thinking they must fry them at REALLY high heat and for longer, although I found the bananas could only be fried for 30 seconds before they started disintegrating. What a mess.   The lighter colored banana chips are the ones that were done with the lemon juice and simply dried. The golden colored ones are the ones that were fried and the dark ones used Fruit Fresh instead of lemon juice. I did a batch like that so you could tell the difference. The flavor of the dark ones is not very good either. The flavor of the fried ones is ok. Kind of reminds you of the flavor of Bananas Foster. But the best ones are the ones that were done in lemon juice. I have decided that tried and true is best and I’m sticking to my method! |
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Posts Tagged ‘lemon juice’
Dehydrating Bananas
Monday, September 12th, 2011
Dehydrating BananasLemon Curd
Monday, May 30th, 2011
  A number of posts ago, I put up my own, special scones recipe and intended to post my favorite lemon curd recipe shortly thereafter. As good intentions usually go, mine disappeared into the oblivion of a ‘To Do List’. Does anyone ever really do what’s on their ‘To Do List”? I mean, my list grows to at least three pages and then I see something on page three that should have gone onto page one and the next thing I know, the list is in the trash and I’m digging around for something to eat. I know. You’re supposed to just list the most pressing items in the manner of “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” However, I’ve never even thought about eating an elephant and I’m not all that good at determining which is pressing, which is nagging and which is “get it done now or the IRS is coming to put you under a bright light for interrogation!!” And so my list grows exponentially and I get sidetracked. I’m easily diverted. Take for example, today, while working in the garden. I had a mental “To Do List” that was at least five pages long and I decided to tackle #2 on page four – weed the onions. We’ve had some good rain and a really strange grass has grown up for the first time ever in my onion rows. My onions have been coughing and gasping for help and so I felt that this might be a “pressing” matter. I began weeding and had that wonderful sensation of accomplishing something as foot after foot of dark, rich dirt became exposed and completely clean around my Texas 1015’s. I had finished row two when a bright red color caught my eye. Two beds over, more raspberries were ripe! Oh! And blueberries too. I had to go get a bag to pick them and left my other rows of onions helplessly begging me to please continue the weeding. Ignoring them, I picked berries, sneaking a lucious bite on occassion, and finally headed in to wash them and get them laid out onto cookie sheets for freezing. As I patted the raspberries and blueberries dry, they made me think of making jam, which made me think of things on which to put jam, which made me think of scones, which made me think of lemon curd which reminded me that I had not posted my favorite recipe. Add to that, a gentle reminder from one of my readers to post it or else (actually, it was my sister-in-law but she’s a reader), and lemon curd went to the top of my ‘To Do List’ that really doesn’t exist. And so, the onions have been left for another day. Hopefully, you are more disciplined than I, but I have to say, it’s not so bad. Mr. Fix-It says that I wake up each day to a whole new world. That’s good, right? VARIATIONS: Substitute Lime juice and lime zest or raspberry juice and 1 tbsp crushed raspberries or concentrated orange juice and orange zest  I have a double-boiler and you can use one if you like, but I like to use a shallow stainless steel bowl over a pan of boiling water in which to make my curd. It makes it easier to whisk the entire area of curd without having to deal with the side crevices of a pan. This gives me a much smoother curd that does not have to be strained for lumps.  Place three large eggs into the bowl or double boiler  Add 3/4 cup of sugar  And 1/3 cup of lemon juice  Just as a hint, I buy my lemons in bulk when on sale and juice them all, freezing the juice in ice cube trays. I pop them out and store them in the freezer in bags. I freeze the leftover rinds for easier zesting. This is one recipe where my dehydrated lemon zest is just not as good. I melt the frozen juice in the microwave  Place bowl over boiling water and immediately begin whisking  Continually stir with the whisk and do not let the curd stand idle at all in order to keep from getting lumpy  The curd will begin to thicken to the consistency of thin pudding. This takes about 7 -10 minutes. If your curd gets lumpy, you can strain it through a strainer.  Remove from heat and immediately add butter  Stir until melted  Add lemon zest and stir in  Pour into a container and allow to cool. Place in frig. If you do not plan on eating all of the curd right away, you can pour it into ice cube trays or small refrigerator dishes to be frozen. Remove from freezer and allow to thaw about 20 minutes before serving.  There is just nothing like lemon curd on scones. Here, I am serving our Victorian House Scones made with 1/2 cup white chocolate chips and 1/2 cup Craisins added. The Victorian House scones are wonderful to keep on hand when you don’t have time to make them from scratch. One package makes 16 large scones. Check them out at the shopping page. |
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