The New Normal
When the pandemic hit last March, I found myself getting worried and stressed out about stuff that never used to bother me. I’m sure this was the case with most of us, as we were all trying to adapt quickly to the new normal of social distancing, curbside pickup, working from home, washing hands with soap 20 seconds at a time 20 times a day, disinfecting groceries, you name it! I never used to stress out about going to a grocery store, or meal planning and prepping. Since I don’t cook more than two meals at a time, I find it very difficult to wrap my head around this concept of prepping many meals. Getting groceries and planning meals consumes so much time and energy!
Grocery Closed Temporarily
In general, I make one or two trips a month to our neighborhood Indian grocery store. With the stay at home orders and with most businesses being closed, I wasn’t sure if they were open. So, I called several times, but there was no answer. I checked their website next and saw a message that said they were closed for the next few days on account of corona virus. About 10 days later I finally saw the message that they were open. Yay!
Curbside Pickup
Because of the restrictions and uncertainty with the pandemic, the store was only doing curbside pickup. They had all the vegetables I needed, but the minimum order was $30. So, I checked out the lentils and snacks section to see if there was other stuff I could add, to make up the minimum order. All the other sections on the menu was showing that no items were available. I cursed my luck and ended up ordering $30 worth of vegetables and here’s what I got: 1 dozen green bananas/plantains, 2 pounds of eggplants, 2 pounds of okra, 1 pound green chili peppers, 1 pound opo squash, 2 pounds of tindora and 3 lemons.
My Curbside Vegetable Pickup
What I Did With These Veggies
Well, I ended up freezing most of the chili peppers. I normally wash them, remove the stalks and dry them out on my kitchen counter before refrigerating them. This time I went a step further, set them in an airtight container and stored them in the freezer I’m positive I’ll not run out of chili peppers for at least 6 months! I got 4 meals out of the eggplant and 4 out of the okra and stored them in the freezer. The tindora and lemons are still in the fridge, along with the opo squash and I expect to use them over the next few days.
Freezing Indian Chili Pepper
The Green Banana/Plantain Challenge
Baked raw banana chips
Nuggets ready for freezing
Especially challenging was the raw/green banana. I normally get one raw banana from the store (about once a month) and make nuggets. On an average, I get about 14 nuggets out of each raw banana. So out of 12 raw bananas I would be eating nuggets every day for about 3 weeks! I wasn’t sure that I wanted to eat so many nuggets. I decided to work on other recipes with this vegetable.
Baked Chips & Frozen Nuggets
I lucked out with a baked plantain chips recipe which took me only a couple of tries, so that worked out great. I also realized for the first time that I could freeze nuggets and that was a real winner! So, in the end everything turned out great and I did not waste anything.
Raw Banana-Potato Sauté
With a very short ingredient list and a total cook time of under 25 minutes, this would qualify for one of our simplest and most delicious recipes. You can have it as a snack between meals, as an appetizer, have it with hot rotis, as a filling in your taco, as a pizza topping, or with steamed brown rice and organic ghee.
Check out our other green banana/plantain recipes:
- Crispy, Delicious, Banana Nuggets
- Raw Plantain With Yogurt Curry
- Banana Stem Curry
- Banana Flower Curry
- Crunchy Baked Plantain Chips
Also check out some of our delicious sautéed veggie recipes:
- Delish Bell Pepper & Eggplant Sauté!
- Carrot, Green Bean, Coconut Sauté
- Cluster Beans-Coconut-Ginger Sauté
- Broad Bean Eggplant Sauté
- Sautéed Asparagus
- Fresh Fenugreek Eggplant Sauté
- Easy Sautéed Green Beans
- Spicy Cilantro Ginger Eggplant Sauté
- Sautéed Asparagus
- Snake Gourd Coconut Sauté
- Easy Sautéed Tindora
- Sautéed Okra
Nutritionally, raw plantain is a great source of fiber, vitamins and minerals, and contains a resistant starch that helps control blood sugar, manage weight and lower blood cholesterol levels.
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Banana-Potato Sauté
Ingredients
- 3/4 Pound Raw Banana - (Or plantain) Peeled, cubed into 1" pieces
- 1/4 Pound Potato - Peeled, cubed into 1" pieces
- 1/4 Cup Onion - Fine cut
- 1 Teaspoon Mustard Seeds
- 1/2 Teaspoon Red Chili Powder - Or cayenne pepper- to taste
- 1/2 Teaspoon Sea Salt - Or to taste
- 1 Tablespoon Coconut Oil
Instructions
- Wash, drain, peel and cut green banana and potatoes. Chop onions
- Heat oil in a pan on medium flame. Add mustard seeds. Allow them to crackle. Add banana, onion and potato to pan. Add salt and mix well.
- Set lid and let it cook for 2-3 minutes. Remove lid, mix well and set lid again. Cook till the contents soften (for about 10 minutes total).
- Now remove lid, add red chili powder, stir well and cook for a couple of minutes. Serve!
