Every Sunday I entertain friends; usually a small dinner party of sorts. My original plan was to do an Italian theme. Appetizer was somewhat easy and the main course was planned out as well. Of course, I planned desert but as expected plans fell through. I planned to cheat and buy a premade tiramisu. There was not a single premade tiramisu to be found. The mozzarella sticks with sun-dried tomato basil pesto were done and the lasagna was in the oven. I had less than 10 minutes before guest arrived and NO desert!?! So I start thinking..”what can I do, what can I do?” so I decided on Bananas Foster. I absolutely love to make things with what I already have. Of course the golden rule of entertaining is to NEVER use your guests as guinea pigs to try out your experiments without testing it yourself. This however is NOT my rule at all. I love to experiment and test it out on my friends. They’re the people I can expect to be honest with me no matter what.
I had some puff pastry sheets, almonds and nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread). A quick trip to the store to grab some bananas and whatever else I could pair this with. Clearly this is guilty pleasure and I didn’t have time to head to the liquor store to make true bananas foster so the next quest was how to make this dish without adding on the pounds. Bananas foster is usually made by sauteing bananas in butter with some cinnamon and sugar then adding rum to the mix (obviously cooking the liquor off). Then its served with a nice heaping mound of ice cream. Its time to improvise. Thus not so bananas foster with a twist was born. I sauted the bananas in a tablespoon of smart balance butter with a dash of cinnamon and no calorie sweetener. To replace the ice cream I bought some sugar free instant banana cream pudding and whipped it with egg whites and yogurt to create this airy creamy whipped goodness with a hint of banana. For garnish I put some triangular puff pastry topped with the hazelnut spread and crushed almonds around the plate. Great healthy version of bananas foster…
February 23, 2009 at 8:16 PM
YES! That Nutella always gets ‘em.