My friend, Abbas, has a banana grove in his front yard which is very productive. Last fall, he had a huge number of bananas. In a stroke of genius, he decided to have a spur-of-the-moment Banana Sundae Party for some friends and make the ice cream from bananas also. With eight people eating up frozen bananas in lots of different flavors, it was a great way to get rid of the surplus!
Abbas came up with nine different flavors of banana “ice cream” to enjoy: vanilla, fig, blended pineapple, chunky pineapple, chocolate, cookie dough, mulberry, lemon and orange. Everyone who came over also found things to add when they arrived: two different types of chocolate chips, whipped cream, nuts, granola and cherries to make luscious sundaes.
What made the ice cream really special was the amount of ingredients that were taken from Abbas’s own yard. Besides bananas, he grows figs, lemons, mulberries, oranges, pineapple and an amazing amount and variety of other fruits and vegetables!
When I asked him for his recipe, this was his response:
“Here is how I made the ice cream. I sliced bananas and put them into big zip-lock bags. I flattened the bag out like a pancake, about one layer of bananas. Then I froze the bags. The next day I removed the bags from the freezer and broke off pieces and put them into a blender. Because the frozen bananas are only one layer thick, it’s not too hard to break them into pieces. The pieces get blended with whole milk, or if you like whole milk yogurt, that makes it creamier, but it’s optional. I guess you could also add heavy cream to make it even creamier still, but I haven’t tried it. To the mixture you could add your flavoring (e.g. chocolate, vanilla etc.), or you could add it later (e.g., pineapple chunks, berries). I used fruit jams for flavoring (e.g., fig and orange marmalade). Then you freeze it in containers. When ready to serve, bring out one container at a time, not all at once like I did at the party because it melts fast.”
Recently, Abbas was showing off his latest crop of papayas and I mentioned that I have a freeze dryer. This is a machine that you can have in your home that will freeze dry many kinds of fruits, vegetables, meats, and other foods so that you can store them until you need them – up to 25 years! The best part about freeze drying is that it preserves most of the nutrients and the structure of the food as long as you keep it away from moisture and air. I have a Harvest Right freeze dryer that I bought before I started building our new house. Anyway, Abbas told me that his banana trees had bananas that could be harvested soon. I offered to freeze dry about 25 pounds for him, if I could get five pounds in exchange. He thought this was a great idea. I currently have all 25 pounds of bananas sitting on my kitchen counter, ripening up, so I can freeze dry them. Each banana is only about 3-4 inches long, so there are a lot of bananas on the counter! Once the skins turn brown, we will slice them up and get them ready to go. Freeze drying can take a day and a half to two days for most vegetables and fruits so we should be able to give him the finished product soon – then he can enjoy them whenever he wants!
What fun! I wish I could have been at that banana sundae party, that was some variety of flavors – he’ll be rivaling Baskin-Robins soon! Sounds like between you and Abbas there will be plenty of freeze-dried fruits around for any recipes where they might be warranted…I’ll keep that in mind.