Monday, June 09, 2008
Peanut Butter and Bananilla Sandwiches!
| Yesterday we wrapped things up with some deliciously carved Banana Steaks. Of course we are en route to a peanut butter and banana sandwich. But since we'd only recently returned from a trip to the grocery store for cheesecake fixin's, my eyes kept wandering. You may have seen them lurking in the shadows of my previous pictures. When I make my own cheesecakes, I had make the crust from Nilla Wafer crumbs. My first few years of cheesecake baking I used graham cracker crumbs. It's good and quite tasty, but I find the crust get a bit tough at times, but Nilla Wafers are always wonderful. Once, a long time ago, I saw a package of ready made crumbs at the store, but have never seen them since. So I have to make my own crumbs as well. I would never EVER resort to using the ready made Nilla Wafer crust. Its tough enough convincing people that I make my own cheesecake. If there's a clearly store bought crust involved, then I lose all credibility. Because I have basically zero counter space, I have no room for a real food processor. I use a food processor attachment to my stick blender. Due to the confined space, I buy the Mini Wafers. It takes a while to grind them down to the proper size. But I eat a few as snacks along the way so it's all good. As I am standing in Courtney's kitchen, surrounded by banana steaks and peanut butter, it dawns on me: banana steaks are roughly the same size as mini nilla wafers. And what's the second most important part of a real banana pudding? The Vanilla Wafer Crust! Ready? Here we go! Place two mini nilla wafers down on a plate. Apply peanut butter to them both: on the curved (top) side of one and on the flat side (bottom) of the other.    These may be a bit time consuming to make for a big party. If your peanut butter is not too tick you could put it in a piping bag and really speed up the process. Have one person carving bananas and another with the peanut butter bag in one hand, piping in peanut butter with one hand and layer with the other. I can certainly imagine lots of great extras you could do to spruce them up. The problem will be in the banana's tendency to brown very quickly once you peel and slice them. Since the peanut butter makes it all stick together, you could certainly put a toothpick into the banana and then dip them in melted chocolate. Then no one can see if the banana slice is browned. Or simply place some chocolate on the banana sort of like a s'more. Perhaps marshmallow creme on one side to balance out the peanut butter? Maybe a Hershey's Kiss for the top instead of the second Nilla Wafer. Even better, a Junior Mint! It's chocolate, it's peppermint -- it's delicious!" - Kramer, in "The Junior Mints"  |
Labels: Recipe
