I don't like bananas. They are not really high on my fruits from heaven list (topped by papaya, btw).

But the minute bananas are looking sad, black, almost ready to mould, I develop an inordinate amount of love for them because they make the MOST amazing banana bread aroma when I bake them. Even if the bread itself turns out a mild disaster (it mostly does since I cut out everything remotely luxurious, including butter), the ripe baking banana aroma is quite enough for me to love any bread... however poorly it might have turned out.

So if you are about to toss some black bananas, you know who wants them.

ME.
Signed,
The black spotty over-ripe banana bread experimenter supreme.

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NB: today's experiment
2 black over-ripe bananas
1 cup plain low-fat yogurt
1¾ cup Whole Wheat Bread flour
¼ cup Wheat bran
Nutmeg
Fig Butter
½ cup Applesauce
Splash of vanilla essence
One BIG thumbs-sized (your thumbs, not mine) fresh ginger chopped.
Some ground black pepper
A tsp and a ½ of salt.

When there is no chocolate on walgreens shelves. Well... there is chocolate but not MY favourite chocolate.

I realize I eat chocolate like it were popcorn or something but still... they are out of *my favourite* chocolate today. They say it will be re-stocked soon. But I want it now, dammit.

Ominous plus plus

There are two top-chef attested methods for cooking greens.

Common step: Wash them thoroughly

Method one: Blanch away

1. Don't chop the greens
2. Bring a HUGE pot of water to a boil with a VERY generous dusting of salt. ("Shockingly salty": that's how one of the chefs whose name I forgot, describes the level of salt in the blanching water).
3. Dunk the unchopped greens into the boiling water for a brief span of time till the greens reach the peak of their green colour.
4. Fish them out as fast as you can and wash them in cold water.

That's it. They are ready for further brief methods of cooking.

Method two: Toss 'em and forget 'em.

1. Chop the greens very roughly
2. Heat a pan on high
3. Drop in some oil and swirl around (add some seasoning to the oil if you want too)
4. Drop in the chopped greens.
5. toss till covered in oil. Splash in some water or soy sauce.
6. Cover with a sturdy lid till the greens are intensely green. They are steamed to crisp-tender at the top and slightly charred/caramelized where they come in contact with the pan.
7. Take the lid off the pan after around 2 minutes.
8. Take off heat - don't let the greens sit around in the pan and season with with spices/sauces. Serve hot.

I haven't yet tried either methods. I usually keep stir-frying because I don't want to char them, and I don't blanch them because it seems like such a waste of micronutrients that inevitably leach out in the water.

Maybe this weekend, I will try both.. I am curious about the differences in taste with both methods.

All the features I keep looking for in Android are usually found by a...

longpress.

I need to remember this when I go hunting all over the web looking for a solution to some commonplace difficulty on Android.

Longpress Longpress Longpress. Guess that "intuition" that people keep talking about doesn't come that easily to me or maybe I am just not hardwired for a mobile device.