Blog for all health-conscious: Quick and Easy Cheap and Healthy Beans, Bananas, and Food Waste {7 Days, 7 Tools: Build a Better Grocery Budget}

Friday 22 June 2012

Quick and Easy Cheap and Healthy Beans, Bananas, and Food Waste {7 Days, 7 Tools: Build a Better Grocery Budget}

Link to Quick and Easy Cheap and Healthy

Beans, Bananas, and Food Waste {7 Days, 7 Tools: Build a Better Grocery Budget}

Posted: 21 Jun 2012 07:00 PM PDT

In 4 days, my new eBook, Your Grocery Budget Toolbox, is scheduled to be released! All this week, I will be giving you sneak peeks of what you will find in the book, and whet your appetite for more. Because trust me, there’s a lot more. Your Grocery Budget Toolbox is over 150 pages long, each page loaded with all the tools you need to build a better grocery budget. Join with me this week (subscribe so you don’t miss a single post), and share with your friends (use the buttons to the left)… I have a feeling they’d appreciate a little grocery budget makeover, too.

Today is Friday (did you know that?) and on Friday, of course, we have “Food Waste Friday”. Which fits in perfectly with our week-long series about Your Grocery Budget Toolbox, because food waste is a huge money drain! Waste not… want not! So in the spirit of Chapter 8: Taking it to the Next Level, let’s carry on with Food Waste Friday!

I have no food waste picture to share with you today. But that does not mean I had no food waste. On the contrary, unfortunately. Remember this Black Bean Chili with Avocado Mousse?

Lovely, isn’t it? Yes, well, I made an entire crock-pot-ful of black bean chili, scooped out an extra-large portion to take this lovely picture, and left the rest in the crock pot. All. Night. Long.

Three days later, I am still kicking myself. I think my shins are permanently black and blue. And I could not bear to take a picture of such a travesty, so you will just have to imagine those poor little black beans all forlornly cast into the trash can so as not to clog up the garbage disposal.

Thankfully, I managed to remember to put the photographed portion in the fridge – how smart of me, she snorts ironically - and was able to feed myself and my starving children lunch the next day. We all enjoyed it. But we couldn’t have seconds.

But… I have good news to report! Last weekend, I bought a half-peck of over-ripe bananas for just $1.50, on top of the several pounds of perfectly ripe bananas I had bought at Trader Joe’s. Bananas, my friend, are easily preserved, so believe-you-me I do not ever pass them up when they are marked down. Never. It’s kind of a rule of mine.

frozen banana cubes

Normally, we manage to eat them up before they even begin to turn brown, because we are banana fiends like that. But this time, I had to get creative, because there was no way we were going to eat all those bananas before they turned to complete and total mush. Here’s what I did (and it did not involve banana bread!):

Sliced some of them into 1/2″ thick rounds and flash-froze them.
Made a smoothie or two.
Turned some of those frozen bananas into Banana Ice Cream. Wow, that was really good, and totally hit the spot! Me and The Boys enjoyed it immensely.
Whipped up a batch of Allergen-Free Banana Brownies (by the way, this was the easiest recipe I found online for banana brownies without wheat, egg or dairy, just in case you’re looking for one.), which The Boys have been gobbling up like there’s no tomorrow. (It’s nice to have such friendly little fellow chocoholics around!)
I also whipped up a batch of these Banana Blondies (minus the walnuts), and have been gobbling them up like there’s no tomorrow. Well, there won’t be any blondies tomorrow, that’s for sure. Not at the rate I’m going!
I couldn’t let some overripe bananas pass me by without making a batch of these Wholesome Banana Donuts. Usually, one thinks of donuts as crappy junk food, but not these! They’re full of wholesome ingredients, so I don’t feel the least guilty eating them for breakfast. Between the four of us, we polish off the entire batch in about two minutes.
Made a batch of Oat Muffins, replacing the egg with one mashed banana. (Bananas make a great egg replacer in quick bread recipes!)
After all that, I still had bananas left, if you can believe it! Those last couple bananas were really looking punicated, so I peeled them and whirred them in my Vitamix at about 7-9 on the variable dial until they were a smooth puree. Then I poured them into an ice cube tray and froze them. Now I have pureed banana that I can either throw as-is into a smoothie or thaw to use in a recipe.

If you’re looking for more banana inspiration, read 5 Things to Do with Nasty Bananas… If you Dare!

The moral of the story? Don’t pass by marked-down produce, whether it’s at the farmers’ market or the grocery store (my bananas happened to be at a local produce stand). Almost any kind of mildly damaged produce can be redeemed in one way or another. In fact, just today, I bought a half-peck of seconds peaches at the farmers’ market and am dreaming of all the wonderful things I will do with them. That will be another post for another day…

What is your favorite trick for using up over-ripe bananas?