Bananas

I was eating an absolutely delicious banana for breakfast this morning and my mind wandered about bananas in general and began to get flooded with thoughts involving bananas!!! So, I took this inspiration and decided to run with it………the result: a post all about BANANAS!!!

I love bananas (“nanners”) and they are so good for you — full of potassium and folic acid — and lots more great stuff!! I get a lot of muscle cramps and once heard that they might be caused by low potassium levels and that if I ate more bananas, I might not get as many muscle cramps!! I thought of that while I was eating my delicious banana breakfast and decided to google bananas to see if that is true!!! I found a great web site devoted completely to bananas (http://www.banana.com/) and it lists a TON of nutritional and medicinal benefits of bananas, but doesn’t include that particular benefit — but I bet that’s only because they would not have enough space on the internet to list ALL of the benefits of bananas……so, they only listed the heavy hitters!!! Did you know that they can help you quit smoking??? The site also has info on how to grow, buy and store bananas and lots of great sounding banana recipes!!!

The Dole web site has some great recipes and I found one on banana fruit kabobs (click here to link directly to that recipe) – yum – it sounds so good….I would have never thought of grilling bananas or making something like this — great discovery! Then, I started humming the old Chiquita Banana song and wondered if I could find a clip with it and, sure enough, a google search on Chiquita Bananas found this – the original Chiquita Banana commercial!!! What fun!!! When I was a little girl, I used to dance around sorta like a Cha-Cha-Cha and sing “I’m a Chiquita Banana and I’m here to say, I am the best banana in the world today….” ha-ha-ha It was a fun commercial, but also very educational and informative!!! Tells you when a banana is the most digestible and good for you and how not to store them and what they can be used in……good commercial!!!

As for me — here is what I like best about bananas:

I like them best when they are a just a little shy of fully ripe — when they are a nice bright yellow and firmer than the spotted fully ripe ones. I like to take a section and then split the three wedges apart to eat them separately!!! ha-ha

I love to slice bananas up on cereal — they are by far the BEST fruit to put on cereal!!!

I really like banana bread, banana muffins, bananas with strawberries in a nice syrup, banana strawberry flavored jello and yogurt – really anything that has banana/strawberry flavor combinations, and of course banana pudding!!!!

Most people have a favorite way to make a banana sandwich — most like to put peanut butter on it — not me! My favorite way to make a banana sandwich is:

KIM’S NANNER SANDWICH RECIPE
Take two slices of white bread
Apply a nice coating of Miracle Whip on both slices
Sprinkle sugar on the Miracle Whip on both slices
Peel and cut a whole banana in 1/2 (across the banana, not lengthwise)
Slice the halves in 1/2 lengthwise (like planks)
Take ONE of the 4 planks and slice it in 1/2 lengthwise (like long wedges)
Layer the 3 banana planks on one of the slices of the bread – flat side down
Layer the 2 banana wedges in the crevices caused by the rounded planks – v side down
Place the other slice of bread on top to make the sandwich
Cut the sandwich on the diagonal
ENJOY!

Oh, man — makes me want a nanner sandwich right now!!!!!!

Now – go bananas about bananas!!!!