Super simple caramel sauce

Bananas are so good for your muscles, but some weeks, we don't eat them fast enough, i.e. before the dreaded brown spots start popping up. Someone who will remain nameless doesn't like the taste or texture of a ripe banana.

So usually, I just peel them and throw them in the freezer to be used for banana bread at some future time. But this morning I felt like bananas Foster, but didn't want to go to all the fuss.

So I just made a simple caramel sauce to pour over the sliced bananas. Delicious! Only four ingredients, and in simple proportions so I can keep it in my head.

Lori K's Simple Caramel Sauce
Serves 2 (can half or double and will keep for a week in the fridge)

Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons evaporated milk
Pinch or two of coarse salt

Instructions
Melt butter for 30 seconds in microwave in a 2-cup Pyrex measure. Add the brown sugar and evaporated milk, mix well, and return to the microwave for 30 seconds. Stir well, and return to the microwave for 15 seconds.

Serve over sliced ripe bananas and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Enjoy!

Go bananas - with pancakes

It's the season leading up to Mardi Gras, and Mardi Gras always reminds me of my favorite New Orleans recipes, especially desserts. And one of my most favorite desserts is bananas Foster.

If you're not up for the formality (or effort) of flaming crepes filled with ice cream, here's a simple dessert that has much of the famed taste.

Bananas Foster Pancakes

Ingredients

2 very ripe bananas

Your favorite pancake mix or recipe (about 1 cup or enough for 4 servings of pancakes)

Sauce:

2 tablespoon butter

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons half and half

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon Myers's Rum

Instructions

Mash bananas in a bowl. Add the dry pancake mix and stir. Add the liquid recommended and mix until just moistened.

Heat a griddle to medium. Spray it with olive oil. Make four large pancakes, turning when bubbles appear. Put each pancake in a bowl.

Make the sauce: Melt the butter and brown sugar until liquid and add the half and half. When bubbling, add the vanilla and stir, then add the rum and stir again. Remove from heat and pour over the pancakes. Serve. Add a scoop of ice cream on top if you'd like.

Warning: I don't even have the calorie count for this recipe, but it's totally delicious. For super decadence, double the sauce recipe.

Bananas and toffee and cream, oh my!

Banana cream pie was one of my favorite childhood desserts, and in Sacramento, my favorite was the one my friend Elaine did for the restaurant she and her husband David owned, Bamboo.

But the Brits one-upped us in the 1970s when the owners of The Hungry Monk, a restaurant in East Sussex, invented Banoffi Pie, which combines the flavors of banana and toffee. It's really easy, too.

Banoffi Pie

Ingredients
3 cans sweetened condensed milk
Pinch of salt
1 9-inch deep-dish pie crust
3 large bananas
1 1/2 cups chilled heavy cream
1 tablespoon packed light brown sugar

Instructions
Heat oven to 425 degrees.
Pour condensed milk into pie plate, sprinkle with salt and cover tightly with foil. Put in a roasting pan, then add about a half inch of boiling water. Bake, refilling pan to halfway with water about every 40 minutes, until milk is thick and a deep golden caramel color, about 2 hours. Remove pie plate from water bath and transfer toffee to a bowl, then chill toffee, uncovered, until it is cold, about 1 hour.
While toffee is chilling, clean pie plate and bake empty pie crust in it (pie weights will keep it from puffing up too much). Cool crust completely in pan on a rack, about 20 minutes.
Spread toffee evenly in crust, and chill, uncovered, 15 minutes.
Cut bananas into 1/4-inch-thick slices and pile over toffee.
Beat cream with brown sugar in a clean bowl with an electric mixer until it just holds soft peaks, then mound over top of pie.
The toffee can be made up to two days before.

If you want to make your own pie crust, here's the original recipe from The Hungry Monk:
For the pastry:
1 cup plain flour
1 tablespoon superfine sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 egg and 1 egg yolk

Place the flour and sugar in a bowl, cut the butter into cubes and then rub it in to the flour / sugar until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Work in the egg to form a paste.
Chill for half an hour then roll out to 1/8-inch thick and line the deep pie tin.
Prick the base, line with parchment paper and weigh down with dry beans.
Cook for 15 minutes then remove the beans and paper.
Put the crust back into the oven and cook until it is evenly golden.
Remove from the oven and cool.

A breakfast dessert

As much as everyone appreciated the eggs Hussard for a crowd breakfast, the bananas Foster put the breakfast over the top.

Bananas Foster by Lori K

Serves 4

I adapted this from Brennan's recipe; they use banana liqueur, which I have never cared for. So I just upped the rum.

Ingredients:
¼ cup (½ stick) butter
1 cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ cup Meyer's rum
4 bananas, cut in half lengthwise, then halved
4 scoops vanilla ice cream

Instructions:

Combine the butter, sugar, and cinnamon in a flambé pan or skillet. Place the pan over low heat, and cook, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Stir in half the rum, then place the bananas in the pan. When the banana sections soften and begin to brown, carefully add the rest of the rum. Continue to cook the sauce until the rum is hot, then tip the pan slightly to ignite the rum. (If the rum doesn't ignite, just continue When the flames subside, lift the bananas out of the pan and place four pieces over each portion of ice cream. Generously spoon warm sauce over the top of the ice cream and serve immediately.