For the Love of Dried Bananas!

I had stopped on Saturday at our local Amish grocery store to pick up some birdseed and left with a good deal on that, plus a really good deal on a case of 150 bananas! We LOVE dried bananas at our house and finding that case for $6.50 was an incredible deal (just over 4¢ per banana). I fully loaded our dehydrator which held about 3/4 of them, then peeled and froze the rest for blends and banana bread down the road. This didn’t actually break a rule during this Zero Grocery Challenge month since dried bananas could arguably be considered a staple at our house, but even if it didn’t qualify as a true staple, I wouldn’t have been able to pass up a deal like that! It took just over an hour to peel and slice them onto the screens and get them started drying, with the remainder going into 3 gallon-size freezer bags. The compost was very happy to have all those banana peels tossed in and we will enjoy snacking on dried bananas for many weeks to come!

For those curious about our dehydrator, it was one that I built from a kit nearly 40 years ago. I have replaced the screen material on the trays twice in that time but otherwise, it has worked without fail for all these years. It is a bit large and sits in the corner of our guest bedroom right now, but it has been worth the investment many times over. Sadly, the company that designed and sold it is no longer in business, as I discovered when searching it for a friend last summer.

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