Right! So I was running low on supplies and I didn’t feel like going to the supermarket. When I mix rice and banana, I usually make “Arroz a la Cubana” (“Cuban style rice”, more or less), which is of course not cuban in origin or anything like that, but I had a lot of cheese in the fridge and decided to go for this instead. This is a “survival” recipe, i.e., something you can do when you don’t have much in your fridge.

So, you need very few things:

• Rice.
• Bananas.
• Fresh Parsley.
• Cheese. Lots of cheese.

To start with, slice the bananas in half and fry them while you cook the rice.

Meanwhile, you’re going to get a generous amount of parsley, and chop it up thoroughly.  Save the bananas once you’re done with them.

Now, once the rice is ready, put the chopped parsley on the rice and mix it thoroughly. If you want to mix some other spice or ingredient to the rice, go for it! Salt it a bit if you want, I tend to put a bit of salt on the water and cook the rice using the absorption method.

Once the rice is done, you want to get a deep oven cooking pot and start preparing  the dish like this: Place a layer of rice, on top a layer of bananas, then a layer of cheese, and repeat as much as you want. The number and thickness of the layers will depend on how many bananas and how much cheese you want to use, in my case I put a layer of rice at the bottom, only one layer of banana, and two layers of cheese (one on top of the bananas, one at the very end on top of everything).

Finally, heat the oven at, say, 108, and in it goes! 15-20 minutes will do, until the cheese at the top is well melted and as darkened as you want.

Serve in slices and serve it hot! You want the cheese to be all melty.

Simple and tasty “survival dish”. Maybe I’ll show what the “Cuban Rice” is supposed to be next time.