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It seems cruel to make someone test recipes while they are sick, and this week Tom had the flu. So I made him a nice bowl of hot chicken noodle soup.

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With Fried Bananas on top!

Banana Slices Easy Ways To Good Meals 99 Delicious Dishes Made With Campbells Condensed Soups 1941

This was one of those crazy topping ideas I got from a 1941 book entitled, Easy Ways To Good Meals: 99 Delicious Dishes Made With Campbell’s Condensed Soups. (Buy on eBay here! *affiliate link) Which might be surprising, because this sounds like something from a Chiquita banana cookbook. But no, it’s from Campbells. I briefly thought about using actual Campbell’s Soup, but I figured that it wouldn’t make difference if I used homemade or not, since I am sure Campbell’s soup is not the same as it was in 1941 anyway.

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I even tried getting fancy with the bananas, and scoring them with a fork like you do for “fancy” cucumbers.

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But honestly, it made no difference. You couldn’t tell the “fancied” bananas from the regular ones after they were cooked.

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Here we are! All loaded onto soup. I made my “get better quick chicken soup”, which is a rotisserie chicken from the store, bone broth (you can use store-bought) and veggie stock. Then egg noodles, carrots, celery, onion and as much fresh garlic and ginger as you can handle. Pro-tip: Buy a big bunch of celery and use all of the celery leaves, too. They really make a difference!

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“What the heck is this?”

“Bananas.”

“But it’s just chicken soup under it, right?”

“Yes.”

“Are you lying?”

“It’s just soup, I promise.”

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“Well? How is it? Is your mind blown?”

“It’s not terrible.”

“Well, that’s a ringing endorsement.”

“What do you want from me? It’s bananas in chicken noodle soup.”

The Verdict: Not terrible

From The Tasting Notes –

If you are looking for an “interesting” way to garnish your soup and use up a banana, you could do worse than this. The banana was sweet and a little salty (I used salted butter), and was an interesting contrast to soup. If you got the banana with a bite of chicken, it was better. It might have actually been better with canned condensed soup, because there aren’t any veggies in that. But not something that I am probably ever going to do again. At least in this form. The soup needs to be spicer to work with the bananas, I think. Or maybe do it with a plantain.  In an interesting side note, I piled the rest of the bananas into a bowl by themselves and divided them up between the kids to eat straight, and they loved them. Alex said it “tastes like banana pie” and TJ ate his up in a flash. So, if you have that banana or two laying around needing to be used up and it’s too cold for smoothies, maybe just fry it up for your kids for dessert instead of floating it in canned soup.

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