Posts tagged "banana"

Five fantastic things to do with overripe fruit

“Overripe” is a bit of a euphemism – I mean fruit that’s past its raw eating prime. Fruit that’s going off a bit, frankly. I don’t mean mouldy or otherwise rank fruit, just fruit that’s just not as fresh as it once was.

Bake fruity breads, cakes and muffins

I’m pretty sure everyone knows that overripe bananas make THE BEST banana bread, right? When they’re brown and soft, they are easier to mush, sweeter and more banana-y. There are thousands of banana bread recipes out there from the simple to the … well, not complex but slightly less simple.

Other verging-on-too-soft fruit can used for baking too – orange muffins, summer berries including strawberries can be used for an oat-topped “crisp” pudding, and of course apples can be crumbled, pie-d or stewed.

Freeze citrus fruit juice

Citrus fruits don’t follow the same sliding scale of ripeness as other fruit – they’re either good or they’re bad, no real inbetween.

If you’ve had some oranges, lemons or limes in your fruit bowl for a while and don’t think they’ll last much longer – act now! Squeeze the juice out of them and freeze it in ice cube trays for use in future cooking.

Or if that’s too much, cut them into wedges or slices and freeze them separated out on a cookie sheet (once they’re frozen, you can put them in a bag or box – but freezing them separately prevents them from sticking together so much). They can them be used in drinks – working as both fruit and ice cubes.
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How can I reuse or recycle banana skins?

banana_peelWe’ve covered very, very brown bananas before but I was reading a Mrs Beeton-style book on home management from the 1930s the other day (as you do), and I saw a reference to using banana skins to clean brown leather shoes.

According to the hefty tome (which also includes chapters on engaging servants, etiquette for women and fortune-telling – all essential to the 1930s homemaker), rubbing the inside of a banana skin on brown leather shoes helps feed the leather. A bit of Googling seems to corroborate this and adds that the same idea can also be applied to silverware.

Any other cunning ways to reuse banana peel?

(We’ve covered orange peel before – that’s got loads of reuses…)