‘Going bananas! The delicious ways I used an abundance of ripe fruit’

What to do with 1,000-plus bananas? This was a problem I recently encountered.

I was recently house sitting a property in Queensland where I had access to no fewer than four huge bunches of bananas. Each bunch averaging 280 to 300 glorious bananas, thus making a tally of well over 1,000 of the delicious treats.

I love bananas, or should I say, I used to love bananas. Not so much now though. There is definitely a limit on how many of these fruits can be consumed in a month.

I would have a couple of fresh bananas each day from the first bunch. After a week I needed to vary the way in which I consumed them. So began the quest to find interesting and tasty ways to prepare the little suckers.

Banana cake came to mind. Feverishly I started whipping up banana cakes. I gave them to all the neighbours and any family who came to visit. I was onto a good thing or so I thought. I soon noticed that the neighbours seemed to be avoiding me. I wondered why.

A kindly woman next door politely told me they were done with banana cake. As delicious as it was, they would probably never eat one again. Overkill, in a big way.

Oh well, maybe I could try banoffee pie. I mean to say, everyone loves banoffee pie, don’t they?

Well yes, they do, but not more than one a week as I discovered.

Time to change tack again, banana muffins. These were winners … For a short while anyway.

A friend in the United States sent me a recipe for banana cream pie. How delicious this was! The neighbours and family thought so too. But again, only for a while. They soon tired of my offerings.

They did not even want fresh bananas, they were all banana-ed out. I would have to look further afield to get rid of my tasty delights.

There was a home just up the road that housed disabled adults. I would take them some treats as well as some fresh bananas.

The staff were thrilled when I landed there with a box full of cakes, muffins and fresh bananas. The residents were equally as thrilled. They thought it was Christmas. I was so happy to be able to share the produce with them all.

They never tired of my offerings. Every few days I would take more up to them.

“Oh look,” they would say. “Here comes that banana lady.”

Gradually the bunches diminished, they became cakes, muffins and pies. They fed the grateful and while it was quite expensive for me to buy all the ingredients to do my baking, it was also a pleasure to be able to do something worthwhile and nothing was wasted.

Have you ever had an abundance of something like this? How did you deal with your situation?

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