Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Elvis has left the kitchen
| You may recall the entire reason for this week of going ape over bananas was due to my visit with Courtney and my recent discovery that some people find peanut butter and banana sandwiches "icky." Those people are nuts. (Get it? They're nuts?) I do have one question though. When you make your banana sandwich, how do you slice your bananas? From my prior post on banana slicing, there are two basic cuts:  and Steaks  With fillet cuts you have a maximum thickness to your slices. Basically, you can't make slices thicker than half the diameter of the banana. Without either huge slices of bread, a very small banana, or crazy cutting, you can only use 3 quarters of the banana. The remaining quarter has one long exposed cut side and that will be brown in 10 minutes. That really seems wasteful. With steak cuts, your thickness is determined by the LENGTH of the banana, not the width. Though I can't imagine making a sandwich with slices as thick as half the length of a banana, who am I to judge? I chose to arrange my "banana steaks" in the typical 3x3 pattern. It was quick and easy. For those who desire to further optimize their bread coverage, I suggest you investigate the history of the Baker's Dozen. Instead of a basic grid placement, you'll need to go with triangles or hexagonal patterns. Or you'll have to start dividing the banana steaks into wedges. When I want a PB&B, I am usually not up for plane geometry. I keep is simple. In the second picture I am sure you are wondering about those stray mini nilla wafers on the edge of the plate. Well, the other benefit of "steak cut" banana slices is that it allows better placement of "additions." Chocolate chips slide nicely in between the slices, making chocolaty pockets of goodness among the banana. Especially if you briefly microwave the sandwich. I chose to add some crispy crunch with nilla wafers.  As I was putting the lid on my PB&B Courtney wandered into the kitchen to pick up hers and seeing my almost completed sandwich, she opened the fridge and grabbed the Hormel Bacon Bits and asked if I wanted to put some on my sandwich. (You see? She really does understand me!) I opted not to add pork to a PB&B, because I didn't think it needed an additional P (pork) or B (bacon) in the name. While I was making my sandwiches, we also discussed the fabled Peanut Butter and Honey sandwich. We had no honey on hand so we couldn't go there, but we discussed theory. I personally put peanut butter on BOTH halves of the bread, thus forming a "honey pocket" in the bread. Tasty, but messy when you take that first big bit. Courtney goes with peanut butter on only one half, allowing the honey to soak in and "krystallize" (yeah I used a K, so what?) in the other half of the sandwich. It's good but the honey often seeps through the bread to make a rather sticky sandwich. When I returned home to research this post, I discovered the history of the peanut butter and banana sandwich and Elvis. Most people know of his love for peanut butter and banana sandwiches that were then fried in butter. The problem is, for some reason there are now 2 or 3 variations of the "official" recipe, some adding bacon, some adding Honey, some adding both. I have also found one that instead of simply pan frying in butter, they dip it in a french toast batter to fry. Maybe the reason Elvis left the building was because they kept screwing up his sandwich.  |
