Banana salsa

We had some extra bananas (not homegrown), which were a little past the normal ripeness for fresh-eating (but still not totally black or anything; just black spots over the peels). I was hungry; so, I decided to make some banana salsa!

My hypothesis was that the sweetness and banana flavor would vanish, and it would be pretty much the same thing as potato salsa (which I've never made, to date).

Here's what I did:

• put five peeled, whole bananas in a glass pot

• added filtered water (enough to mostly cover the bananas)

• boiled the bananas

While the bananas were boiling, I did the following:

• added Gel brand garlic powder (a liberal amount)

• added Gel brand minced onions (a liberal amount)

• added semi-powdered chile peppers (various kinds mixed together; a liberal amount)

• added Spice Supreme brand black pepper (a liberal amount)

• added Winco Foods brand distilled white vinegar (not too much, but enough to taste it well)

• added butter (maybe a third of a stick)

• added a sprig or two of fresh Spicy Globe Bush basil grown indoors (which may have been a cross with another kind of basil); I put the sprigs in whole and boiled them (at least one of them had flowers, I think)

• crushed the bananas with a potato masher

I did not add any salt. I did not add any tomatoes.

I boiled the result for a long time (to get the mashed bananas more mixed with the water), and then ate it with Juanitas gluten-free tortilla chips (and later tried some on El Monterey Beef and Bean Chimichangas, which I shall refer to as burritos in this post hereafter). I was surprised to find some things:

• It was still obviously sweet

• It still had a banana taste (I think this and the sweet taste were perhaps because of how ripe the bananas were)

• It was quite good

• It tasted better than it smelled (but it didn't smell bad)

• It tasted like salsa (with the corn chips)

• I liked it more than mango salsa

• It made my burritos taste like teriyaki burritos

I started boiling it on high for a good while, and then switched it to just below medium for the rest of the time. I boiled it until soon after I had to stir it constantly or else it would spit at me (this means the texture was right).

Two people taste-tested it for me, and they both liked it a fair amount.

Anyway, the ingredients that I mentioned probably weren't too unusual for a salsa except for the bananas, butter, and basil. I added the butter because bananas and butter taste great together. I added the basil because I thought maybe it would taste good with the bananas (and the taste did contribute significantly, I believe). Spicy Globe Bush basil tastes kind of like mint gumdrops.

The chile pepper powder came from peppers I dried from 2016 and/or 2017 and maybe a few from 2018 (the homegrown peppers included Grandpa's Home, Aji Omnicolor, Ring of Fire, probably Randy Sine's Evil Jalapeno, maybe Candlelight peppers, and maybe other peppers), as well as at least three kinds of peppers that were purchased whole and dried some time ago, including some Walmart (e.g. Japones and some huge ones that were probably Guajillos; the Walmart peppers weren't detectably hot to me) and some from a Mexican store (e.g. Chile De Arbol). I blended these up in the blender and got a quart of semi-powdered peppers as a result (of course, I didn't use the whole quart on my salsa). Oh, I should note that I blended up a few dried Alexandria alpine strawberries with the quart of peppers, and the Grandpa's Home peppers did have some food grade diatomaceous earth on them for a reason that I forgot. I did leave calyxes on some of the peppers instead of taking them off before blending (pepper calyxes are supposed to add flavor).

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