ESTHER'S VEG BOX CHALLENGE: BANANAS

Make good use of your surplus produce with ideas from deputy food editor Esther Clark. This month, she’s created three recipes using ripe bananas

- Esther Clark

Most people find themselves with a banana or two lingering in the fruit bowl at the end of the week, beginning to speckle and turn brown and sweet. I like to slice them, then fry them in brown sugar and cinnamon to spoon over porridge or sandwich between brown bread with honey, sea salt and butter (childhood nostalgia!). There’s a small window of opportunity with ripe bananas – you have to catch them at the right time before they go too far. If they do go a bit too brown, you can use them in a banana loaf or bread – I like to mash mine and bake them into cookies, too. But my favourite way to eat bananas is baked with a good glug of rum or whisky until caramelised (opposite). Bananas pair so well with a dash of booze, and, when baked, are reminiscent of the gooey bananas you eat around a campfire. Serve them with ice cream, too – they work especially well with salted caramel flavour.

Boozy baked caramelised bananas

SERVES 4 PREP 10 mins

COOK 20 mins EASY V

6 ripe bananas, peeled and sliced in half lengthways

2 tbsp dark brown soft sugar

2 tbsp maple syrup