Between the two of us, 172 bananas in this huge bunch, is quite a bit to get through.

This bunch was so heavy that it broke off the tree and we found it on the ground on Saturday morning.  If you want to eat green bananas, you have to start eating them quickly, or else they start ripening within 7 days.

Luckily, the weather has been hot and dry this week, so I have been able to process the bananas for sun-drying.

This is what I have been doing the last three days.  I have been grating them with this neat grater that I found in the Taiwanese store near Belize City.

The grated bananas just need a full 8 hours in the sun to dry completely.  I have been processing 50 bananas a day which fills up a gallon jar once dried.

So, by the end of today, I will have three gallon jars of dried banana.  In my experience, each jar is equivalent to 20 meals and so in total, I have 60 meals in all.  That is what I call food security!

Dried banana can be re-hydrated to make porridge, rostis, fritters, fillers for sausages, vegetarian bean burgers and much much more.  Furthermore, this dehydrated stuff can be ground into fine flour for making breads, biscuits and pastries.  This dry form is so versatile!  I will post up recipes as I start cooking with it.

One last thing…this big bunch of bananas would retail at about $20 (USD$10) in this country.  $20 gets you two meals of rice and beans with stewed chicken, which is typical Belizean food fare.  To me, it really makes a lot more sense to go through the extra labour of processing the food so that I can get 60 meals out of it all.  It’s also a labour of love…home-cooked food is always the best!