Banana Trifle!

What do I do with all the bananas from the dining hall? Make banana trifle o' course! (did you hear Hagrid in your head when you read that?)

You will need:

1 blender

1 pint of heavy whipping cream

6 sugar packets (easily gotten from B-Caf or any dining hall in the tea section)

1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 box of instant vanilla pudding (or chocolate, or whatever your favorite flavor is!)

1 portable coffee cup of milk from B-Caf (or 2.5 cups of milk procured from another source)

Lots of vanilla wafers! (about three-fourths of the box)

4-5 bananas, thinly sliced

1/2 of a lemon's juice - to mix with the bananas to keep them from getting brown

lemon curd, blackberry jam, nutella

First, make the pudding! Mix the milk and the pudding mix together in a portable container, like an empty yogurt carton or a tupperware. Vigorously whisk the mixture together until it gets thick. Then pop it in your fridge and let it set up.
Next, make the whipped cream! I found out that you can, in fact, make whipped cream with your blender. I put the blender in the freezer to ensure the best whipped cream possible. The cream whips up better when it's blended in a really cold container. Pour the whole pint of heavy cream into the blender. Flip the switch and watch simple cream turn into a tasty treat! Add the sugar packets and the vanilla extract. Keep churning that blender till you have copious amounts of whipped cream.
Break the vanilla wafers up into little bits. Slice the bananas and put them into a bowl.

Now begins the layering process:

vanilla wafers, bananas, pudding, whipped cream, repeat. End with whipped cream and a decoration of bananas on top. We flavored the whipped cream with several different things: for the first trifle, we folded lemon curd and blackberry jam into the cream. For the second batch, we used nutella! YUM.

Enjoy! Very simple and fun to do in your dorm room.

PB and Strawberry Smoothie

Strawberries! I brought some organic strawberries back to school from home and I thought they would taste delightful in a rich and delicious smoothie. I found my inspiration from Jamba Juice. They have this item called a "chunky strawberry topper": strawberries, bananas, yogurt, soymilk, and granola all mixed together in what they call an "ideal meal". I augmented this a bit and used:

- 3 Organic Strawberries

- 1 banana (frozen)

- 2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter (but I think crunchy would also be a great choice!)

I blended this all together and it made a thick concoction with a lovely ice cream-y consistency. I sprinkled some raspberry granola (from Andy's!) on top and voila! The perfect late afternoon snack...

Banana Ice Cream

Frozen bananas + anything else that is delightful = banana ice cream! This weekend I dusted off my blender and made three delicious batches of frozen banana goodness. Lauren and I were very creative with our flavors, and we're looking forward to concocting even more! As we were peeling the frozen bananas (which was like sticking your hands in snow) we had an epiphany: one day, after we return from our travels in France and Sweden, we're going to open our own specialty food store and serve banana ice cream and french/swedish fusion food. So stay tuned! Anyway, for the first batch, we added honey, agave nectar, vanilla, and cinnamon. It has a breakfast-y, hello morning! spin to it. Delicious. For the next round, we added organic chunky peanut butter from Trader Joe's and the result was fantaaastic. Peanut butter + bananas = what could be better? The crunch of peanut blended with the cold, creamy banana is so good. And it's good for you too! (This is a completely guilt-free treat, all it is is bananas!) For the third round, we went a little crazy. We added NUTELLA (good in almost anything) to the bananas and it created what looks like a thick and delicious milkshake! A real treat. Try this in your dorm! Or at home! All you need is a blender. It took me about a week to get about 12 bananas from the dining hall. I wore my rain jacket one day to Hedrick and smuggled out six bananas at once - it was a legit operation. Once I had the bananas back to my room, I let them ripen till they get all the cute freckles on them and then I put them in a large zip lock bag and threw them in the freezer. It's nice to have a stash of frozen bananas on hand! Give it a whirl and feel free to experiment with whatever extra ingredients you want! Next time I think we might try some granola, frozen berries, walnuts, chocolate chips... the possibilities are endless.

Ingredients (for one batch)

4 Very Ripe, Frozen Bananas

Extras! (For the peanut butter banana ice cream, we added about 1/3 cup of peanut butter. I think I would add more next time though, who can say no to more peanut butter?)

First, peel the bananas and split them in half or thirds and then put them in the blender. Flip the switch on the blender and you'll soon see a mass of banana turn into a luscious and creamy concoction. Once the bananas are pretty much blended, add in your extras! It's better to mix these in by hand, so everything is distributed evenly. Pour the banana ice cream into a container (I save my yogurt containers) and put it in the freezer! You can eat it right away, of course, but after it's been in the freezer for a few hours it really gets that ice cream consistency.

Most importantly, have fun and be creative!