Banana – Lavender Honey Mead: An Arranged Marriage

Bananas and Lavender Honey

It isn’t often that I make something that wasn’t riotously planned out with an exact flavor in mind for the outcome.  This is one of the exceptions.

My wife and I had a couple pastele making days this winter. If you don’t know what pastels are, think of tamales but made with plantains and green bananas instead of corn.  When my wife went into the grocery store to buy the bananas, she said to the produce clerk, “I need ____ pounds of green bananas.”  The clerk told her that if she purchased a whole box of bananas, that she would get a much lower cost per pound on the bananas.

So she bought awhole box.

Pasteles are awesome.  I could eat them until I puke and then eat some more.

On New Year’sDay, we made 100 pastales.

We had 35 green bananas left over.

What do you do with 35 bananas?

Fruit Smoothies

Another thing I've been working on over the past few weeks has been fruit smoothies.

Between work & home-life stress and some weight gain over the past couple of years, my blood pressure has risen into 140/90. So I'm trying to exercise more and eat better.

Part of eating better has been cutting back on the beer intake. Calories are calories and alcohol raises blood pressure.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not replacing craft beer and homebrew with smoothies. I'm using the smoothies to ensure I'm getting proper nutrition. This is the basic recipe I've been working with:

1/4 cup vanilla yogurt
1/4 cup 2% milk
1 - 1.5 cup fruit (preferably frozen)
3 or 4 ice cubes if the fruit is not frozen

Place all in a blender and purée.

Fruit combos I have tried:
Strawberry - banana
Blackberry - banana
Raspberry - banana
Pineapple - banana
Apple - banana
Raspberry - apple
Mango - banana

I know there is a lot of banana on that list. Banana is blood pressure reducing. Also, when frozen, it gives a milkshake quality to the smoothie.

The yogurt is to give it a little more sweetness. Choose the flavor you like.

If it ends up more chunky than smooth, add more milk.

Finally, you will want to have a blender that can blend ice. I purchased a Ninja for about $50.