Banana and Mango Parfaits

Yesterday morning my dad and I went to the farmer's market and bought lots of luscious, local produce. In the picture above are organic cantaloupe, zucchini, red tomatoes, yellow pineapple heirloom tomatoes, organic red and yellow pear tomatoes, white pattypan squash, and peaches. In addition to what's in the picture, we also bought organic red and yellow and green peppers, organic cucumbers, and blackberries, but I was too lazy to take them out of the frig for this picture.



Where did I get so many bananas? Well, at the HEB closest to my house, whenever they have a lot of single bananas or they start to get a little bit too brown for the average customer, they fill a big, brown paper bag with them and sell the whole bag for $2! The bag probably has 15 pounds worth of bananas! So, of course, my father, who can never pass up a great deal, has to buy one whenever they have them! What you see in this picture is probably about half of what was originally there. So what to do with them?




Make banana sorbet, of course! To make the banana sorbet, first you have to peel ripe bananas, break them into 2-3 inch chunks, and freeze them for at least 24 hours. Then, you put the chunks in the food processor with some kind of liquid. Usually I use fresh orange juice, but this time, I put a few chunks of cantaloupe in the processor first, process, then add the banana chunks. This really worked well, making the sorbet creamier than it ever was with the orange juice. I made the mango sorbet in the same way, except I bought a bag of frozen mango instead of freezing fresh mango. The banana sorbet was delicious, although the mango sorbet was only so-so. It was not as sweet or creamy as the banana. To make these parfaits, I alternated layers of banana and mango sorbet and fresh sliced strawberries. Then, I put a fresh cherry on the very top. Yum!