Beware Frozen Bananas

Spotty bananas ripe for freezing

My favorite trick to making smoothies is to use frozen chunks of banana.  I let the bananas get really really ripe, until they are covered with dark spots.  Then I peel them, and cut them into chunks before freezing.

Frozen bananas defrosted and peeled

One day, ripe organic bananas were on sale for 0.49/lb. So I couldn’t resist buying a bunch, intending to make smoothies with them. As I had them on the counter ripening, and there were several of them, I wondered if I could use them for baking. I did some googling, and found that people do use frozen bananas for baking, and in fact said they freeze them whole (in their skin).

So I decided to try that, as it would save the extra step of peeling and cutting the bananas.  Later, I took my whole frozen bananas from the freezer, let them defrost on the counter for about 45 minutes, and made banana cake.

Mashed frozen bananas

However, I will never ever freeze bananas in their skin. To just be blunt, the defrosted skin was really slimy and horribly gross to touch. But once I got past that, the resulting banana cake was wonderfully moist and delicious, the same as made with fresh bananas.

Unfortunately, there aren’t any photographs of the finished cake because I was more interested in eating it than photographing it

Trader Joe’s Vegan Foods

Trader Joe's Chicken-Less Beef-Less Meats

Trader Joe’s is a great place to shop,  for vegans and non-vegans.  First, they have great prices on staples, a large selection of which are organic, including tofu, jams/jellies, nut and seed butters, canned beans, bread products, frozen vegetables, and non-dairy milks, including soy-, nut-, and rice-based flavors.  (Hmm, now I’m stumped trying to think back to the basics of high school English to remember if that is the appropriate use of hyphens.  I think it is, but it’s been so long .. )

Recently I spotted a fairly new arrival at the Daly City location – a quadruplet of house brand faux meat products.  I’m not necessarily a big fan of buying faux meat products to prepare and eat at home, but they looked so darn appealing on the shelf.

Having a vague recollection of having brunch at Herbivore’s a few months back with friends, and hearing a rave review about stuffed cutlets purchased at Trader Joe’s in SF, I went for the fake meat in box number four.  Upon reaching home, it joined my other collection of vegan-foods-to-be-eaten-later in cold storage.

Flash forward to about a week later .. I’ve just been for a gorgeous hike on a late spring Sunday, didn’t feel like cooking, and so out came my home-frozen rice and O Organics broccoli, and my new stuffed cutlets.  Interestingly, the two cutlets were individually packaged, which is nice if you don’t want to eat both at the same time.

Well, I followed the instructions on the box and microwaved the cutlets (yes, in my tired and lazy state of mind, I microwaved them in the plastic bags).  It was simple to prepare, and when combined with the brown rice and broccoli, it made a decent meal.  The cutlets were good — the sauce had an enjoyable slightly spicy undertone, the fake meat tasted fine, the stuffing was okay.   I thought the cutlet on the package box looked more appealing than my actual cutlet though.

On a scale of one (low) to five (high), the average reviews from the two vegans in the household was a solid 3.0, which reflects our thoughts that while it was good enough to eat again, it seemed a bit pricey for what it actually was.

Anyways, if you’re looking for other ideas of what to eat vegan at Trader Joe’s, cheaply, check out Michelle’s recent video blog at Vegan Break.

Sukhi’s Samosa & Chutney

Sukhi's Samosa & Chutney

Having Udupi Palace in San Francisco has rekindled my appreciation for Indian food.  Sometimes, however, I like to enjoy the taste of Indian food without the drive to the city.  And, now that the mid-Peninsula coastside boasts a wonderful natural foods store like New Leaf Community Market, my food horizons have expanded to include Sukhi’s Samosa & Chutney.

These samosas are delicious, and every bit as tasty, maybe even a tad more, than eating them at Udupi Palace. They are exactly as described, “crispy vegan handcrafted wraps with potatoes and peas”.

Sold frozen, they are $6.99 for 10 samosas with a cilantro chutney included.  The ingredients are simple and easily identifiable as vegan.  For the samosas, it’s potato, unbleached flour, canola oil, green peas, salt, coriander powder, cumin powder and spices, while cilantro, lemon juice, vinegar, peanuts, garlic, serrano chili, ginger, salt & evaporated cane juice comprise the chutney.

Another bonus point for Sukhi’s:  I really appreciate products that are vegan, especially when they prominently label the product as vegan.

In my book, Sukhi’s is well worth the money to bring this delightful  taste of India to my home, especially when I have those hungry moments where the upper boundary of my cooking energy is turning on the oven.