Paula's Fried Peanut Butter & Banana Sandwich (Review)

I know, I know...this has absolutely nothing to do with soap. But I think this year I will blog about other things too that interest me. I am a food and recipe junkie. I love looking at the food network and the other cooking channel and occasionally trying something different. So, about an hour ago I decided to try this Paula Deen recipe I saw on one of her episodes the other day. It's pretty simple and most people have these ingredients on hand in their kitchen. So I will just give you guys my review of this and you can determine for yourselves whether or not you want to give it a try.

I did not follow this recipe to the "t". I used creamy peanut butter instead of crunchy and omitted the honey. I only made one sandwich so I'm not sure about the amounts I just eyeballed everything to my liking. I also used a firm banana b/c I didn't want it too mushy. Fried in a cast iron frying pan a couple of minutes on each side and Mmmmmmm...finally toss in cinnamon sugar and done. I paired this with a cup of Giradelli Hazelnut Hot Chocolate and it was the perfect combination. 1st bite - creamy peanut butter oozing out with a crunchy buttery bread. However when I got to the last 2 bites I must admit I was a little tired of the bananas, but my bread was still nice and crunchy. (just being honest)

Next time I may just leave the banana out or just put it on half of the sandwich.

 If you don't like things too sweet just don't coat your sandwich in sugar at the end. Personally I had no problem with the sugar:) Now this is not something you want to eat every day. An occasional splurge is OK but I read in one of the other reviews this sandwich is 800 calories, not sure how accurate that is but gauging from all the butter and sugar that's probably about right.

I was actually pleasantly surprised that I actually liked the combination. Well butter and sugar makes just about anything taste good :) And we know Paula loves her butta'! I hate I didn't take a picture of mine b/c my sandwich actually looked better than this in my opinion. Maybe the cast iron skillet had something to do with that. Let me know your thoughts on this if you decide give it a try! Recipe is below:

"Paula's Fried Peanut Butter & Banana Sandwich"

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup crunchy peanut butter

3 tablespoons honey

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 to 3 ripe bananas

8 slices white bread

Topping:

1/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

In a frying pan, melt 3 tablespoons of the butter. Make sure butter does not burn. In a small bowl mix together the peanut butter, honey, and cinnamon. Slice the bananas into 1/4-inch thick slices. Spread the peanut butter mixture on 4 slices of bread and cover with banana slices. Top with the remaining 4 slices of bread. Spread the remaining butter on both sides of the sandwiches. Grill the sandwiches in the frying pan until each side is golden brown.

For topping, combine the sugar and cinnamon in shallow plate. Coat the grilled sandwiches with the mixture. Cut diagonally and serve hot.

The recipe and picture were taken from the foodnetwork.com website.