Banana Magic, or Banana WannaBe: You Choose!

Many, many times I am working on a recipe and need to add banana. Banana is a wonderful way to add sweetness to a recipe without cane sugar, or heaven forbid, high fructose corn syrup. Living out in the country I just cannot force myself to get in the car, drive to ‘town’ and buy bananas. Not to mention the problem of locating a banana that is just a bit over-ripe. A woman in the produce aisle with no shopping cart, looking a bit frazzled, groping and squeezing bananas in search of an almost over-ripe banana could set off alarm bells! My solution? Baby food! Yes, baby food! I always buy organic banana with just one ingredient: banana. The pured banana works great in a pinch, which is almost all the time as I frequently have zero bananas in my kitchen fruit basket. The shelf life of my banana baby food is several months. True you could purchase bananas and allow them to get very, very, ripe and then pop them in your freezer. Then you have the problem of thawing in a second’s notice, mashing, etc. I like my brilliant idea better. Not to forget baby food bananas are always ready when I need them, and I don’t have to explain my odd behavior at the market at 10 o’clock at night!