Caramelized Bananas

A few years ago Bryan and I met up with one of Bryan's business contacts for lunch at Fogo de Chao in Philadelphia.  The place is like a festival of meat where the gauchos come to your table with different meats and you tell them what you'd like and they carve it off for you.  The food is very good and it's very easy to overeat there when surrounded with so many delicious meats.

As much as I love the meats there, there is a side dish that I love just as much as the meat.  That side dish is the caramelized banana.  It has that out of this world yummy quality that leaves me wondering if I should go for another round of filet mignon, parmesan encrusted pork or more caramelized bananas.  In those moments the struggle is very real.  There's only so much food I can eat at a time.

I'm not sure why, but I never tried making the caramelized bananas at home.  I suppose I thought it would just be too complicated.  Yesterday while at my sister-in-law's house for a graduation party her boyfriend's family was there cooking some out of this world food. His family is from Barbados and these people are just gifted with making some fabulous food.  While I was happily eating some rice and beans and bacon wrapped dates, a plate of what looked a lot like caramelized bananas appeared on the table.  Turns out they were plantains, but they tasted just as awesome as the bananas from Fogo.  The plantains inspired me to try making the caramelized bananas so I went in search of a recipe.

I found this recipe from Food Network and gave it a go.  The results were very yummy.  They turned out so well that after bringing some to Bryan while he was in a meeting, he came upstairs shortly after asking who made them.  They really only take a little bit of time to prepare, so I'll certainly be making them again.  I wish I had taken a picture so I could show you  how they looked.  You don't need to serve them over ice cream like they tell you in the recipe.  They're very good all by themselves.