Recipe: Banana blueberry pancakes (with one banana and lots of blueberries)
Banana blueberry pancakes make good use of a too-soft banana. Debbie Arrington
Bananas may be a tropical fruit, but they don’t last long in this heat. It seems just a day or two on the counter, and they go black.
(And I’ve met folks who have successfully grown edible bananas in Sacramento – not the Cavendish variety so familiar in supermarkets, but stubby little finger bananas. The trick: Providing winter protection for the plant from freezing cold.)
What to do with an overripe banana? Banana pancakes, of course. Add summer blueberries and you have a special (and filling) breakfast treat.
Banana blueberry pancakes
Makes 7 to 8 pancakes
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 overripe banana, mashed
½ cup milk
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup blueberries, washed
Butter or margarine for the griddle
Into a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
In a small bowl or large measuring cup, combine mashed banana and milk. Stir in beaten egg, then oil.
Add banana-milk mixture to dry ingredients. Stir until moistened. Fold in blueberries.
Heat griddle to 350 degrees F. Butter griddle, then ladle batter onto hot griddle. Cook until bubbles start to form on top of pancakes; flip pancakes over and cook until done, about 2 to 3 minutes more.
Remove from griddle. Serve hot with butter and maple syrup.
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Garden Checklist for week of Jan. 19
Dress warmly in layers – and get to work:
* Apply horticultural oil to fruit trees to control scale, mites and aphids. Oils need 24 hours of dry weather after application to be effective.
* This is also the time to spray a copper-based oil to peach and nectarine trees to fight leaf curl. The safest effective fungicides available for backyard trees are copper soap -- aka copper octanoate -- or copper ammonium, a fixed copper fungicide. Apply either of these copper products with 1% horticultural oil to increase effectiveness.
* Prune, prune, prune. Now is the time to cut back most deciduous trees and shrubs. The exceptions are spring-flowering shrubs such as lilacs.
* Now is the time to prune fruit trees. Clean up leaves and debris around the trees to prevent the spread of disease. (The exceptions are apricot and cherry trees, which are susceptible to a fungus that causes dieback if pruned now. Save those until summer.)
* Prune roses, even if they’re still trying to bloom. Strip off any remaining leaves, so the bush will be able to put out new growth in early spring.
* Clean up leaves and debris around your newly pruned roses and shrubs. Put down fresh mulch or bark to keep roots cozy.
* When forced bulbs sprout, move them to a cool, bright window. Give them a quarter turn each day so the stems will grow straight.
* Browse through seed catalogs and start making plans for spring and summer.
* Divide daylilies, Shasta daisies and other perennials.
* Cut back and divide chrysanthemums.
* Plant bare-root roses, trees and shrubs.
* Transplant pansies, violas, calendulas, English daisies, snapdragons and fairy primroses.
* In the vegetable garden, plant fava beans, head lettuce, mustard, onion sets, radicchio and radishes.
* Plant bare-root asparagus and root divisions of rhubarb.
* In the bulb department, plant callas, anemones, ranunculus and gladioli for bloom from late spring into summer.
* Plant blooming azaleas, camellias and rhododendrons. If you’re shopping for these beautiful landscape plants, you can now find them in full flower at local nurseries.