Banana Food Use Dinner For One

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For those wanting a quirky meal idea heavily focused on food use, using up the entire banana (peels, flesh, tops, and tails), and better for the environment, the following is of interest:

This is a one-course meal with a starter smoothie mocktail drink and an after drink of banana tea. The banana tea is served last because it induces sleep. It's not meant to be gourmet, and its memorable aspect is that at least it is acceptable to make it as a meal for one and can use the entire banana fruit. In that sense, it's a little bit unusual.

Note: Use one large organic banana for this entire meal, but if unavailable, two small organic bananas suffice.

I've written this meal in the order it ought to be consumed in; however, the preparation is up to the reader, but to make it fast, you top and tail the banana and make the tea first with the tops and tails, then the curry and rice, then the smoothie. This is so the tea can infuse and the smoothie can be at its freshest. While everyone is different, from a personal perspective, the meal has its charm because it has many banana flavour variations, conserves food and time, promotes sleep, and has a fresh, homecooked taste, so it is not overly filling.

The Meal

1. Banana Turmeric Smoothie
Ingredients are: banana flesh from one banana cut into pieces (frozen is better for thickening the beverage), a quarter teaspoon of turmeric, a splash of light milk, which can be watered down or boosted with sugar, or even a spoonful of honey. To make a vegan substitute, blend with coconut milk instead of light milk.
To make: Blend in a blender. Note that a banana and rum smoothie is a possible alternative. In that case, avoid turmeric and blend homemade yoghurt, banana puree, banana liqueur, rum, and creme de cacao. This suggestion is just to liven things up a bit and actually encourage more people to try the meal idea, but for those wanting just a simple healthy appetiser, the banana-turmeric smoothie will hit the spot. Note that in the photo at the top of the article, I actually got the tops and tails that had been boiled in the banana peel tea added frozen banana, lite milk, and a bit of turmeric, and blended it all up. What seemed overly impromptu was a bit of a breakthrough in that the smoothie was palatable, but I had used the entire banana fruit in the meal idea without throwing any of it away. To take the food usage that far is entirely optional though, and you will have very minimal food waste if you simply dispose of the tops and tails of the banana rather than use up in the smoothie.

2. Banana Peel Curry and Boiled Rice
Ingredients are: a quarter of a cup of rice, a tablespoon of rice bran oil, 200 ml of water, two teaspoons of flour dissolved in 70 ml of room temperature water, two level teaspoons of sugar, 3/4 teaspoon of salt, organic banana peel of one banana, well washed and coarsely chopped, a teaspoon of brown or malt vinegar, a teaspoon of curry powder, half a teaspoon of hot curry powder, and a quarter teaspoon of garam masala. Curry powders are types of spice mixes, so you'll have many spices in the dish, but for those with more time to prepare the meal, there are adjustments like adding chopped onion, ginger and garlic pastes, etcetera, but I don't recommend it because it's a food use recipe where the aim is reducing waste and creating efficient food use. Also, it's amazing how the entire meal can be prepared fast, so adding extra ingredients will in fact seem superfluous. It's in a meal where everything tastes like banana, so ingredients like onions, peas, and lentils might make the complete meal less palatable in fact.
To make: add rice to 6 cups of water and boil gently with lid off as there is plenty of water compared to the rice; heat the rice bran oil in the frypan or saucepan; add chopped banana peel, and fry with the curry powders and the garam masala. Add 200 ml of water, sugar, and salt, and increase heat; add vinegar; and reduce heat. Add the flour and water mixture and stir in; the mixture should get a creamier consistency, and let it thicken slowly on low heat. Cooking time is about 10-15 minutes at a very low heat once the flour and water mixture is stirred in. Serve once the curry and rice are cooked to your liking, such as the thickness of the sauce and the softness of the rice grains. Note generic supermarket long grain rice is useful for this recipe; what I recommended about boiling gently requires about 15-20 minutes of cooking time.

Note that it's important to chop the banana peel once washed, as it goes brown, as you will see in the tea recipe. It's intended to keep the peel white in the curry and let its tannins infuse into what is a brownish-red-coloured tea.



3. Banana Peel Tea
Ingredients are: tops and tail bits of one banana, a sprinkle of ginger powder, and a quarter cup of sugar; two cups of boiled water; four cups of cold water.
To make: Add sugar, banana tops and tails pieces from one banana, ginger powder, and boiled water to a saucepan, and then bring to a slight boil with the lid on and keep on the hotplate but turn the heat off. The tea will bubble away a bit more and stop bubbling. Then, add the cold water to the mixture and transfer to a heat-proof or withstanding different jug or container. However, that is if you want to clean and re-use the saucepan for the rice in the curry if you want, it's fine to leave it in the saucepan it cooked in and just let it cool. Only remove the banana pieces at the very last minute, as they give the tea its colour, straining is optional, as is labelling the tea into cups hot or cold or with extra ice cubes. However, to serve as a herbal chai latte, if the tea is lukewarm or uniced, froth hot milk for it; if the tea is chilled with added ice cubes, add cold frothed milk. Serving, hot, warm, cold, or iced, on its own or with milk are all viable ways to consume the tea. But it does need to infuse; no matter how it gets served, the infusing gives it flavour and colour.



Links
Banana Peel Food Ideas as published on WeekendNotes. Banana peel tea recipe for sleep by the Sleep Foundation. Banana and Rum Smoothie recipe idea (the recipe requires alcohol ingredients). Banana and Turmeric Smoothie recipe with ginger, and, finally, a famous gourmet banana peel curry recipe .

Note: The photos in this review were taken by its author in 2024.

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