I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

Banana

Peanut Butter and Banana Frozen Dog Treats

I know that everyone is like “OMG!!! Bring on Fall!!! Pumpkin Spice All The Things!!!!” but it’s still hotter than the surface of the sun here in Florida. In fact, we have just 2 seasons: Hot and Hotter.

Here, these frozen treats will be a welcome reprieve to the heat for most of the year. And even it it’s cold out, I bet your dog will enjoy them.

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Nutty Chocolate Chip Banana Monkey Bread

Damn, toddlers are difficult.

Under statement of the year, right?

Besides stating all the obvious things like them freaking the eff out over dumb stuff like what shoes they want to wear (I swear we can NEVER find the pair she wants to wear right that very minute!) or the Minnie/Dora/Disney Princess of the cup she wants, we have entered a whole new realm of ‘fun’.

We have now entered the fun bed time fights that involve me moving things because they scare her. Last night I had to move a stack of framed pictures and canvases sitting on her dresser to get hung up since they “look like an alligator” Say what?!?

Then a little while later I had to move a bag in the hallway since it, again, looked like animals trying to eat her. 

Can’t wait to see what tonight brings!

Also, I was asking her what I should put into the monkey bread. We settled on adding in chocolate chips (duh!) to the bananas and nuts. She was too into watching Shimmer and Shine on my phone (our cable isn’t hooked up yet… ugh!) to help me make it so understand what I was doing because…

as soon as it was ready and we offered her some “monkey Bread” she refused “EWWWWWW NO MONKEY’S BREAD.” Well then…

 

It’s like a

I almost called this Chunky Monkey Monkey Bread but I was afraid the double ‘monkey’ in the name would be confusing. Maybe?

And that’s all my silly stories for today!

Nutty Chocolate Chip Banana Monkey Bread

Makes 10-12 servings

Ingredients

  • 3 packages of refrigerated buttermilk biscuits
  • 1 Cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 Cup granulated sugar
  • 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
  • 2 bananas, thinly sliced (about 1/4″ thick)
  • 2/3 Cup finely chopped nuts, such as walnuts or pecans
  • 1 Cup chocolate chips
  • 1 Cup butter, melted

Process

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a fluted tube pan with non stick cooking spray
  • Cut each roll into 4 pieces.
  • Place half the banana slices, chopped nuts, and chocolate chips in the bottom of the pan.
  • Roll each piece into the blend of sugars and cinnamon. Then put into the tube pan.
  • Once half the pieces are in the tub pan, add the remaining slices of banana, nuts, and chocolate chips.
  • Finish putting the coated biscuit pieces into the tube pan then evenly pour the butter over all of the pieces.
  • Bake for 43-48 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before inverting on a platter for serving.

Banana’s Foster Waffles

Banana's Foster Waffles

Okay, summer, can you please get hot?!?!?

 

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I’ve been anxiously waiting for it to get hot here in Boston. Sure, it’s been in the 80’s but it has not yet hit 90 yet. Every day they show a chart on the local news that shows the number of days above 90 for the past few years and this year has a big fat ‘0’ next to it. It breaks my heart.

I live for the hot sticky days. It just feels so great to step outside to hot humid weather. Like when I travel to Florida and the doors open up at the airport and it feels like a big slap to my face. It just makes me feel alive when my skin gets prickly from the heat.

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So while it’s not as hot as I’d like, I’m still enjoying the summer. We have been grilling a lot, playing around in the kiddie pool, and just sitting out enjoying the nice days and nights. My neighbors do as well. It’s so nice to see families enjoy it together with kids running around before and after their BBQ dinners. In fact, our neighbors were recently enjoying the cool summer nighttime breezes with some friends when I brought them over a big platter of these Banana’s Foster Waffles. That’s just how I roll!

Banana’s Foster was originally invented at Brennan’s Vieux Carré Restaurant located on Bourbon Street, across from The Old Absinthe House in the 1950’s. (Side note- Price and I believe that the best Bloody Mary is from The Old Absinthe House in NOLA. GET ONE!!!) It was a solution to excess bananas that they had in stock. Brilliant.

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It’s a great combination of ripe bananas, butter, sugar, cinnamon, and booze. It’s sickly sweet. It’s sticky sweet. It’s perfection.

And I, of course, dumped all that syrupy banana goodness on of a big old scoop of vanilla bean ice cream, which was happily melting on a warm waffle.

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I kept it simple stupid when I approached the waffle as I just used a mix and added some cinnamon to it amp up that flavor that’s in the Banana’s Foster syrupy goodness. Don’t get me wrong, Bisquick is great but the Belgiuan Waffle Mix from Krusteaz is AWESOME. It is airy and has a great sweet flavor to it. Their Buttermilk Pancake Mix is also great, but I wanted to use something on the sweeter side as it’s for dessert.

When you make Banana’s Foster the rum should flame up… FLAMBE! But as I don’t have a gas range mine didn’t. I tried to get it to catch with a flame, but by the time I lit it the booze was already cooking off. Hey, I tried! So no worries if your flambe is a dud, it will still be great!

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I don’t tattle if you make this awesome dessert for breakfast. You know what they say, well, what do they say?

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Banana’s Foster Waffles

Makes 6 – 7″ wide round waffles

Ingredients

For the waffles

  • 3 Cups Belgiun Waffle Mix, I used Krustez
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/3 Cup water
  • 1/3 Cup vegetable oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

For the bananas

  • 4 Tablespoons butter
  • 1 Cup light brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 2 Ounces banana liqueur
  • 1 1⁄2 Ounces aged rum
  • 3 bananas

For serving

  • Vanilla Ice Cream
  • Whipped cream

Process

  1. Preheat your waffle iron.
  2. In a large bowl, mix together all of the ingredients for the waffle batter. Begin to make the waffles. As they finish, place on a cooling rack.
  3. Cut the peeled bananas in half, then cut each half in half again, then repeat to cut each portion in half to create 8 long pieces.
  4. To prepare the banana’s foster sauce, combine butter, sugar, and cinnamon in a flambé pan over medium heat. As the butter begins to melt, add the banana liquor and stir to combine.
  5. Add the banana to the sauce, cook until they begin to soften (about 1-2 minutes).
  6. If using a gas range, tilt back the pan to slightly heat the far edge of the pan. Once hot carefully add the rum, and tilt the pan toward the flame, to ignite the rum. If using an electric cook top, use a lighter to ignite the rum.
  7. Gently stir the sauce and continue to cook for 1-2 minutes to ensure that all of the alcohol cooks out.
  8. Plate a waffle, add a scoop of ice cream, and then top with 4 slices of banana and sauce.

Banana’s Foster recipe adapted from Brennan’s New Orleans Restaurant

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While I received product from Krusteaz for recipe development, all opinions are my own