I had plantains for the first time.

Okay, maybe I have had them before, cooked by some other hands, but this was the first time they were prepared with curious anticipation by my own. I was surprised how hard the skin was to remove – an attribute related to ripeness, perhaps? – and how yellow they were on the inside. Bananas are, let us admit it, quite white. Plantains, browned a bit with some jalapeno, cumin, coriander, and a splash of sesame oil, are yellow. They have a different flavour too, although I admit that might have been born as the result of the other things in the pot. Some how they reminded me, just faintly, of jack fruit.
A successful experiment all around, and one I will have to repeat again. I had some of the leftovers for lunch one day as odds-and-ends burritos – plantains as the main flavor, with a layer of unfinished miso oatmeal from that day’s breakfast and a final layer of jalapeno-ed lentils, cooked to a nice re-fried texture. The combination was spot on, except for the places where I put too much oatmeal and too little fruit. The ‘tains tame the jalapeno wonderfully – though it helped that I remembered this time and removed the seeds before chopping. I still wasn’t quite mindful enough not to lick my fingers after scraping the green rings into the pot.