What To Do With Over-riped Bananas

Are you the type of person who feels guilty whenever you see food rotting in the ref and fruits becoming over-riped because you have lost interest in eating them?   You are not alone.  Yours truly feels very guilty whenever I see bread, rice and fruit rotting away.  One of the most common fruit that easily ripens is the banana.  People often refuse eating over-riped bananas in the Philippines because there is an oversupply of bananas.  In some places in the country, bananas are very cheap.  They are almost given away.  But there are also expensive banana varieties.  

The lacatan variety is an expensive kind of banana.  This is often the exported quality.  They are exported to countries like Japan and Korea.  Koreans take their fill of these delicious bananas whenever they visit the Philippines because bananas are expensive in Korea.  They always say, it's so unfair that there are so many delicious and cheap fruits in the Philippines, but Filipinos don't seem to eat most of them.   While in Korea, these fruits are so expensive and Koreans are crazy about them.

But I digress, this post is about utilizing over-riped bananas into something useful and edible.   One day, I noticed that the lacatan bananas' covering has turned mostly black,. This is a sign that it is already over-riped.  So I mashed one of the bananas until I could no longer see any solid chunks, not that it became syrupy, just enough to feed a 6-month old baby.   After that, I got two cups of pancake mix and combined them.  Later, I put 2 tablespoons of cooking oil, you may use butter if you prefer to use it instead of cooking oil.  I added 2/3 cups of milk and one egg.  After preparing this mixture well, you can start frying the pancakes in desired sizes.   You can top the pancakes with honey or blueberries.  If you have other ideas, please share them here.