leanstead

leaning up to focus on faith and simple life

How to Use Overripe Bananas: Don’t Waste Them

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Do you have a bunch of overripe bananas sitting one your countertop glaring at you? If you are like me, you bought them with the best of intentions. Right? You were going to keep fresh fruit around to keep you from unhealthy snacking. But time got away from you and now they are ruined.

OR are they really?

Let’s not let them go to waste. Surely, there is SOMEthing we can do with them.

woman with bunch of overripe bananas

The Problem with Overripe and Forgotten Fruit

The other day I was cleaning my kitchen after making a batch of no bakes for the cookie jar. Almost done with the dishes and YIKES! I looked next to the sink and hanging above the fruit bowl was a bunch of overripe, mushy bananas that would normally get thrown away because there’s no way I’m going to eat them now.

A Different Solution for Ripe Bananas

Since I am trying to be very intentional about not wasting money or food, I’ve started taking advantage of those overlooked and overripe bananas. It’s quite the tasty solution, too!

I can freeze them and use them later.

Blender cup with bananas

Easy, Peasy Banana Squeezy?

  1. Start by peeling the bananas.
  2. Using a table knife, cut the bananas into ½ inch slices.
  3. Arrange the slices on a parchment paper lined baking sheet or a flexible cutting board. I like to use the flexible cutting board because it creates less waste.
  4. Place the baking sheet or cutting board in the freezer for about two hours. You can defintely leave them in longer, but two hours is usually long enough for them to be frozen through.
  5. Take the sheet out of the freezer and remove the banana slices. Store them in a freezer bag in your freezer to use later for smoothies, cookies, bread or other treats. My favorite use is as a morning smoothie. See recipe below.

Banana Smoothie Recipe

Yield: 2 servings

Banana Smoothie Recipe

smoothie in glass with bananas on the side

This is a simple basic smoothie that uses bananas as the starting point. There are lots of ways to personalize this one.

Prep Time 5 minutes
Total Time 5 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 frozen banana (cut into ½ inch slices)
  • 2 tbsp almond butter
  • 2 tbsp greek yogurt
  • 2 tsp milled flax seed
  • 12 oz almond milk (can be sweetened or not, depending on your taste)

Instructions

  1. Combine all ingredients in a blender
  2. Blend until smooth
  3. Divide into drinking glasses and serve

Notes

Substitutions or additions:

Can use other nut milks or oat milk in place of almond milk.

Can use peanut butter, cashew butter or other nut butters for protein in place of almond butter.

Can add maple syrup or honey to make smoothie even sweeter or add a tsp of fruit preserves per serving (strawberry is excellent).

© hope
Category: Recipes

5 Money Saving Tips in the Kitchen that are Environmentally Friendly

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These money saving tips for the kitchen will help free up some cash AND are kind to the environment. Who’s not looking for frugal and friendly?

We are all trying to squeeze a little more out of each paycheck, right? Let me help out a little with some simple reminders of habits that we’ve all heard of but tend to slip away from over time. Any one of these concepts can be tackled, perfected and expanded. So don’t get overwhelmed. Just start with one idea at a time.

1 – Shop from a list

You’ve heard the warning “Never buy groceries when you are hungry”, right? That’s because you end up buying everything that looks good and often you get home and have no idea what to cook for dinner. Well, the same is true for shopping without a plan. Start with making a menu for the week. The best way to begin is to look in your refrigerator, freezer and pantry to see what you already have on hand. Make a general list of ingredients and build your menu around those items. Make your grocery list from that menu and commit yourself to stick to it.

When my kids were little, they loved to man the list. The one sitting in the grocery cart held the list and checked the items off as we put them in the cart. In a way, I guess they were actually keeping me in check because if I strayed, they would say, “That’s not on the list!” Overall, it has proven to be a good habit for us all.

2 – Cook from scratch

Cooking from scratch was probably one of the most foreign concepts for me as a young adult. I grew up in the age of the convenience food extravaganza. Our pantry was filled with can soups, box meals, seasoning packets, and loads of junk food to keep a family of six filled. We were a family on the go, so my mom didn’t have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen. We didn’t know then what we know now about the chemicals and all of the sugar present in processed foods.

Today, though, we can make better choices. Not only will our bodies thank us, our wallets will as well. Cooking from scratch is actually quite liberating. A bag of flour, some oil, some sugar and eggs can be the building blocks of bread, cakes, cookies, pasta, pizza crust…Do you see what I mean? All it takes is a little time to explore some recipes, check out a food blog, watch a video or maybe even phone-a-friend.

I’ll admit, it can seem a little daunting at first. Recipes used to overwhelm me. Then, when I was living in a place that did not offer all of the convenience foods I was accustomed to, I was forced to try my hand at making homemade tortillas and brownies. It turns out, recipes are our friends! How cool is that?!

3 – Plan for outings

Another way we end up spending extra money on food that is probably not the best for us, is on fast food. We’ve all been pushed for time and errands take longer than expected so you end up hitting a drive through for a quick meal. If you are like my husband and I, you can pretty much count on being disappointed and feeling bloated afterwards. The only way to avoid this is simply by planning ahead and preparing a snack or meal to go. Not only does this save you money, but you’ll end up skipping out on the regrets.

4 – Look for store brands instead of name brand products

Many items on your grocery list can be filled with store brands instead of name brands. Often producers of name brand products also have contracts to produce the same item with other labels. So, you can possibly end up with the same item in a slightly different package, but with a lower price tag. This savings can often be close to 50%, so it’s definitely worth giving a store brand a try.

5 – Check out the price per unit

Sometimes we can be tricked into thinking that bigger is better when it comes to unit prices. However, that may not be the case. Doing a little math while in front of that shelf can save you a littler money.

When possible, also consider refillable items. Items like soap or cleaning products often come in concentrated solutions that you can dilute and add to a previously purchased container. This is usually more environmentally friendly, provided it really does create less waste. But you still have to consider the waste and consider the per unit price. In other words, think it through.

There you have it, the short list of simple steps to take on the journey to frugality starting in the kitchen. In a later post, I’ll share more ideas for practicing frugality in other parts of the house. Let’s not overwhelm ourselves. Just start with one idea and master that one before jumping into others. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

Five Reasons to Raise your Own Meat

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The idea of raising your own meat may sound crazy to some. “How can you eat an animal that you raised?” It’s a question I get often. I definitely don’t take offense to it. It’s completely appropriate and understandable. So, I would love to share just five reasons we have made the decision over the past year to begin raising a good portion of our own meat.

1. Raising your own meat is provides a good quality of life for the animals.

Have you ever heard the term CAFO? Probably not. In fact, I had already begun raising our first pigs when I heard it for the first time. CAFO stands for ‘concentrated animal feeding operation’. It is the industry’s method of growing out pigs (or other animals) in an enclosed area with concrete floors where the maximum number of animals spend their days. I won’t even show an image of it because it just feels wrong to see animals raised in confinement where they never see daylight or enjoy fresh air. Factory farmers choose this method of raising animals because it is efficient and yields a nice profit for the investor.

Three little pigs eating grass. Raising your own meat.

Our animals, however, live in very different conditions. Living in small groups, they are free to enjoy the sun, the wind, the ground.With the option to go into a shelter or remain completely outside, they have fresh water at all times and are feed by humans who talk to them, pet them and scratch them. Animals make messes and we clean them up, but that is a small price to pay for what they bring us.

2. Raising your own meat provides dense nutritional value.

It’s difficult to know how nutritionally dense your meat is when you have no idea what the animals have been feed. Most all of the meat found in supermarkets in the U.S. is from animals raised on corn, soy and other grains along with being mixed with parts of other animals. You can do the research, so I won’t share any more here.

four small pigs eating grain. Raising your own meat.

Here on our homestead, we feed our animals non-GMO, no soy and no corn feed, milled in a nearby town. We want to support local as much as possible and believe this is a win-win. Our animals are not only provided this nutritious feed, they are also able to access grass and insects that would be part of their normal diet long ago. They are healthier and rarely have health issues related to the overcrowding of CAFO’s. For this reason, it is not common to need antibiotics. We do not use hormones to speed up their growth or maximize their size. Instead, we allow our animals to grow out at the rate God intended.

3. Raising your own meat is better environmentally.

Many people are surprised to learn about the benefits to the land from raising animals. Not only do animals till the land and eat pests, they also deposit natural fertilizer in the form of manure. This improves land for crops. Additionally, many animals can provide weed control.

Animals are incredible recycling machines for food scraps. We rarely have any food going into our kitchen trash can because there is always an animal that will eat those leftover food pieces Everything from salad bits to egg shells to chicken bones; it is all consumed and turned into more chicken or bacon. Not bad for reduce, reuse and recycle. Eh?

small pig eating food scraps. Raising your own meat.

4. Raising your own meat helps to keep things local.

It just doesn’t get any more local than walking out the front door to gather your groceries. Those eggs at the super market have traveled much further and for far longer. Our eggs are sometimes still warm when we crack them for an omelette.

eggs in a wooden bowl. Raising your own meat.

We also either process our animals on our property or at a local processor just 30 minutes away. We know our processor by his first name. He calls when the meat is ready to be picked up. He cuts the pork chops to suit our taste and makes recommendations for how to prepare certain cuts of meat. Do you know your butcher?

5. Raising your own meat provides a boost for our mental and physical health.

Studies show that having a cat or a dog can reduce stress, anxiety, depression and loneliness. Raising livestock can have those same effects. the interaction between caregiver and animals is mutually beneficial. Not only are animals entertaining and enjoyable, they also require physical activity on our part. We haul food and water, mend fences and build shelters. Because they live outdoors, we are also soaking up additional vitamin D that is lacking from the average office job environment.

piglet peering through a fence. Raising your own meat.

And finally…I’m not even counting it as one of the five reasons, but there is one more psychological reason for raising our own meat. When we sit down to nourish my body with chicken or pork, we are always aware of the life that has been taken. Realizing that an animal gave its life for my nutritional gain, keeps me from over indulging and from taking for granted that sacrifice. Yes, there is an emotional connection that can be hard sometimes. It needs to be. If I am going to eat a pork chop, I need to be connected to it.

If you are considering raising your own meat, go for it. It is good that we meet our meat.