Haha I never thought I'd ever cook something like this. It's the first time I bought and cooked a banana heart blossom. 😆 Also the coconut milk, oof, I rarely cook anything with that. But for this week I decided to make a meal out of it!

Because I am still on a flexitarian diet, I have to be creative on what I cook. I don't want to want to eat the same thing over and over.

And so during the weekend when I was grocery shopping I decided to buy something new. I saw banana blossoms being sold or what we call puso ng saging. Wow of course I bought one. 😆 (Now I think I should've bought two. 🙃)

I don't really make meal plans at all. When I shop I just buy all the vegetables, fruits, nuts, etc., I want to eat for the week and that's it. Up to me when I get home on how I'll mix everything to make a viand. Haha. I do think about the combinations for a bit but end up just buying whatever I wanna buy.

On Monday, I cooked the usual veggie viand + another new ingredient! Oh I forgot to take a picture but I bought some toge (mung beans sprouts). I added it to okra (ladies' fingers/ochro) with kamote tops (sweet potato plant leaves). Yummm. Off course I munched on some sunflower seeds on the side.

Ate that for breakfast and lunch. For dinner I then cooked something else. This is when I decided to look for instructions on how to cook the banana blossom.

_{Original image source. Edited by @artgirl.}

Of course I didn't have all the ingredients to make what I found on WikiHow. But the article is really helpful because it has videos and written instructions. ❤️ Despite everything, I did have enough to make my own version! Haha so here's what I came up with.

♥️ Preparing the Ginataang Puso Ng Saging, @artgirl's version!

_{Banana Heart Blossom Stew with Coconut Milk}

Usually this vegetable can be good for vegetarians and vegans. However since I am currently a flexitarian until the end of the month, I added some kind of fish in it. ❤️ You'll see what it is below. 😉

🌿 Ingredients:

• 1 piece of (medium sized) carrot
• String beans
• Baguio beans (green beans)
• 1 whole puso ng saging
• 1 pack of gata (coconut milk), 200 ml
• 3 tbsps. of toyo (soy sauce)
• 4 pcs garlic cloves
• 1 small red onion
• 2 tbsps. rock salt
• pinch of salt
• pinch of turmeric
• 2 tbsps. cooking oil
• Canned tuna spread, 85 g

As you can see I didn't use patis (fish sauce) because I don't have any. Yeah, I should buy some on my next grocery run. Anyway this may be unconventional to some but as mentioned I just mix what I bought to make a meal. Haha.

And there you can see the last one. Haha. It's the "secret meat" ingredient for the flexitarian me. 😂 (That's the fish equivalent of liver spreads. Hehe.) I added that in because it was just sitting in the refrigerator.

The tuna spread was opened last week and I only consumed a bit of it. So I thought before it got any molds it's better to cook it instead. Otherwise if I was eating like normal, I would put in real animal meat in there. Ah such are the things I eat these days. 😆

Moving on, this is how I prepared everything.

🔪 Preparation:

After washing the rest of the vegetables, I cut the beans and diced the carrot too. For the main event, I read and watched the tutorial first. Haha. I didn't know how to cook this "heart" at all so I needed some online help. 😆 Better safe than sorry.

_{The puso ng saging has tiny flower "buds" (florets) that would evenually turn into bananas.}

1. I peeled off all the reddish part of the "heart".
Well actually I removed them layer by layer until the "last cover". I made sure that one had very little red in it. The red ones are said to be tough so it's better to discard those.

The instructions said to get rid of all that I removed but I kept most of them. I also didn't throw away the banana florets. Hey it's food waste to do such. If it can be cooked and eaten then for sure I would! (More on that later.)

2. I cut the remaining blossom crosswise.
Well the video showed it should be lengthwise but I didn't do that. 😅 I dunno I just thought it would be more fun to cut crosswise. 😆

3. I then put 2 tbsp salt and mixed it with the banana blossom.
Of course I put it in a separate bowl so I can mix it with the rock salt. This is so the bitterness of the "heart" can be removed. _{(Oh if only it were "that" easy. 😆)}

4. Leave it for 15 mins and then squeeze everything later.
After I crushed the garlic, I peeled it and then the onion. Then I sliced and minced both. Next, I prepared the pot where I would cook everything.

When the time was up I squeezed the chopped banana heart. I didn't squeeze super hard, just enough to get the "bitter juice" out.

5. Rinse everything.
Of course we have to wash everything that's been hand squished. Haha. I couldn't use cold water though because I forgot to turn on the water dispenser. Also didn't have any in the refrigerator so oh well...

Supposedly using cold water will prevent the blossom from browning. Well it did become kinda brownish after I rinsed it.

_{Rinsed banana heart slices in a colander.}

It's not too bad... I couldn't soak it in cold water to keep it from browning further. After rinsing that's when I started cooking everything.

👩‍🍳 It's Time to Cook!

This is how I cooked this delicious viand. 😋 I don't usually time the way I cook so I'll just write it down the way I did it.

1. Heat the cooking oil in the pot.
2. Sautee the minced onion. And before it even burns, add the garlic.
3. Add 1/2 to 1 cup of water to keep it from burning.
4. Also add in the soy sauce.
5. Before it boils, add the tuna spread.
6. Make sure to divide or squish the tuna spread so it mixes well later, then wait 'til it boils.
7. Stir then add the puso ng saging and wait 'til it boils again.
8. After several minutes, stir and add the diced carrots. Let it simmer.
9. Add the gata and stir then let it boil.
10. After a few more minutes add all the beans.
11. Put in a some salt and a pinch of turmeric plus other herbs to add to the taste. I added oregano, basil and thyme! 😘
12. Stir occasionally. (Add more water if needed.)
13. After some more minutes of boiling voila! It will smell good enough to eat. You can also take a bit of veggie to check if it is cooked enough or not. If the beans has only enough crunch left in it then it is finally cooked! Yummm!
14. Just leave it in the pot for a few minutes more after turning off the stove.

Serves 3 to 4 people, I guess. Since I'm the only one at home well it will last for 2 days. Haha. I have other viands to eat too for variety you know! 😅

Once it's done you can finally serve it while it's hot! Oh la la. I put some in a container. Look at that. Isn't it colorful? 😁

_{The finished viand of the day! Banana heart blossom stew in coconut milk!}

When I sipped some of the soup I was surprised it tasted really good! Huhu. I don't use gata at all in any food I cook. It's the first time I used it and wow it seems it made the food delicious.

I'm so happy to have cooked something like this for the first time. Haha. If you want to try this Filipino meal variety of mine let me know how it turns out! 😄

As for the banana florets and such, I will let you know what I did with those in another post. Let's eat!


XOXO,
@artgirl

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Written by @artgirl for Hive
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