Gone Bananas

Here it is

I knew it was out here somewhere. Y'all, look at this dish. You see it's covered with bananas

Well, it's covered in bananas for a reason. Because today, I'm gonna be making a curry-crusted banana

And I'm also gonna be making a cheesy ham and banana casserole

We're gonna finish it off with Elvis' favorite dish, a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich

So as y'all can see, today's show is all about Paula going bananas

You don't want to miss it. And I have to tell you something else

The sand nets are so bad here today, we need to hurry up and get in the house because they're about to eat me alive

So come on in and let's go bananas together. Let's get going

I swear to Peter, I thought the sand gnats were going to eat me

up before I could get back in the house. Now it was undercover out there so I think it's

pretty clean. I'm just going to wipe it out and I want to tell y'all about this cute little

bowl. Our friend Greg Portman and his wife gave this dish to Michael and me for a wedding

gift and I have to tell you I fell in love with it the second I opened it. I think it's

It's just about the cutest container I've ever seen. So thanks again Mr. and Ms. Portman

Michael and I love it. All right, I'm gonna put my bananas in there

And in case you just joined us, today we're going bananas. So the first thing I'm gonna be making is a curry crusted banana

All you have to do is take your bananas, slice it right down the middle, and then I'm gonna

slice them in half. And you'll want to use a nice ripe banana

You want to stay away from a real overripe banana because you want them to still have some firmness to them

because we're going to bake these. I love bananas. It's probably my favorite of all fruit

And, of course, it's a little bit more fattening, but there's so many things that are good about it

It's full of potassium, which is good for your heart. We've got them cut

Now I've got six tablespoons of butter that I've melted over here on the stove

and I'm going to add one teaspoon of curry powder to it. And, you know, curry is one of those spices that I don't use very much

but I found that it was just delicious in these bananas. You know, curry is kind of like oysters and chitlins

and things like that. Either you love it or you don't love it

All right, now I'm gonna pour the butter and curry mixture. All right, and then over here

I've got two cups of cornflakes. Now, these are not frosted. You don't want to use the sweetened cereal

So we're gonna take our flakes and we're just gonna crush them with our hand

All right, now we're gonna take our bananas and we're gonna roll them in our curry butter mixture

And you'll wanna make sure that they get totally coated with that butter

You know, when you think of bananas, you think of monkeys, don't you

Well, my grandmother Paul loved monkeys, and they owned a motel, and Grandma had monkeys

And she had them in a cage out in the front by the pool in front of the office

so that when people were checking in, they could go over there and visit with the monkeys

They were bad monkeys. And I used to go to the cage and, you know, aggravate them, which made them even meaner

All right, now we're just gonna toss these in our cornflakes and put them on a greased baking sheet

You wanna make sure that you toss them completely, get them all wet with that butter

so that that cereal will stick in every spot on that banana

And you're just not gonna believe how good this is gonna be. And plus it's, you know, good for you

It something that you would feel good about serving your children Now we going to put this in a 450 pre oven and we going to bake them for about 10 minutes You want to make sure that you don cook them too long You know you kind of just

want to get them hot through and through. And look how pretty these are. Now we're going to put these

in the oven. And in they go. And in 10 minutes, we're going to have curry crusted bananas

And when we come back, I'm going to be tasting them. And I'll see y'all back in a minute because we're still going bananas

Welcome back, everybody. In case you've just tuned in, Paula's going bananas today

I'm fixing to take a wonderful curry-crusted banana out of the oven

and then I'm going to be sharing with y'all a recipe for a wonderful cheesy ham and banana casserole

But first, I want you to see these curried bananas. And I can't tell y'all again

how wonderful these are with like pork chops or any kind of pork

I love the crunchiness that the cornflakes give it. So I hadn't made these in a while

Mmm. they're just as good as I remember them. Y'all have to try this quick, simple, and easy and

nutritious side dish. All right, well let's move on to our next dish. It's cheesy ham and banana

casserole. Now I'm going to start with a buttered 13 by 9 by 2 dish. I've got white bread that I've

trim the crust on, and I have buttered both sides of the bread

So we're just going to take our toast, or our bread. It's not toast yet

And we're just going to lay them in the bottom of our casserole dish

just like this. And then we're going to layer some thin, thin ham slices across it

Now, this is just a deli ham, one that I bought from the grocery store

And we're just going to layer it over our buttered bread. And I'm going to put about eight slices, and I'm going to let it overlap

The next thing we're going to do is I'm going to slice four bananas

So you can see all the different flavors I've got going on in this dish

We've got the bread, we've got the ham, we've got the bananas

I've noticed when I'm out having pizza, I'm amazed at the people that order pineapple on their pizza

which is kind of the same principle that this casserole dish is

you know, the sweet, fruity with the savory. And I think that when y'all try this recipe

that you're going to be pleasantly surprised how all these different ingredients and flavors

flavors come together. And when you're making this dish now, you'll want to make sure that

your bananas are not overly soft, because again, you don't want them to turn to mush

Okie doke. Alright, now we're going to top our bananas with the last six slices of our

buttered white bread. And then I'm gonna come over here. I've got four large eggs

I've got one cup of heavy cream and one cup of milk

All right, I'm gonna whisk our eggs together. I'm the messiest, sloppiest cook, y'all

Alright, and to this I'm gonna add a little ground pepper, a little salt, and to top it

off I'm gonna gradient a little fresh nutmeg into it that's gonna give it just a nice

smooth, little spicy taste. Now I'm gonna layer some other ingredients on top of our bread

I'm gonna layer two cups of shredded cheddar cheese. This is interesting, isn't it

It's getting very interesting. All right, now I'm gonna come over here

I got several cups of potato chips And these are just a regular potato chip They not flavored And I gonna crush them up

All right. Next goes on our potato chips. Oh, yum

All right. Now, I've got about six slices of a crispy cooked bacon

Now, I'm just going to crush it up, and it's so crispy

that that makes that job very, very simple. And I'm just going to evenly distribute that over our potato chips

Now we've got our custard, and we're just gonna pour that evenly over all of our ingredients

This is gonna be so good. And remember, breakfast, brunch, or lunch is perfect for all three of those meals

All right, so I'm gonna get this in the oven now, and it's gonna bake for about 45 minutes

And then I've got to take a little break, give y'all a chance to get something to drink

I'm gonna show you how we've put a little twist on Elvis' favorite sandwich

Welcome back. We need to get our banana casserole out of the oven

Look at this. Look, it's just a sizzling. Isn't that so interesting

All right, I'm going to let this sit here and rest. All right. Elvis

I loved Elvis. Elvis, I just think he was the most wonderful entertainer of our time

And Elvis, for all the richness that he was exposed to and all the grand places he went

you know, his roots really took him back to the foods that his mother and his grandmother fixed him

He liked very simple home cooking. And his favorite sandwich from what I hear

was a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. I have made just a couple of little changes

in Elvis's favorite sandwich. I'm gonna start by using just plain sliced white bread

I'm gonna take 3 fourths of a cup of a crunchy peanut butter

And I'm gonna take three tablespoons of honey. Now, to our peanut butter and honey, I'm going to add one and a half teaspoons of ground

cinnamon. All right, now I'm going to take our mixture

And I'm gonna spread it on both pieces of bread. All right, and because we're going bananas today

we can't forget the banana. So I'm gonna take it and peel it

and I'm just gonna slice it onto our bread that's been just slathered with that peanut butter mixture

Now you can put as much or as little banana as you like

Alright, so that peanut butter on both sides of those breads is going to make that hold

those bananas in place because if you just put peanut butter on one side, it wouldn't

have as good a tendency to stick as it does with two pieces. Alright, so I'm gonna butter our bread

to just make sure we have plenty. Alright, and I think I can get a couple more sandwiches on there. oh

all right what I'm going to need to do is because my heat is not evenly distributed I'll have to

take my sandwiches and trade places with them so that they'll brown nice and evenly

Oh they looking very very good And while these are finishing up I going to mix together a little topping that we

going to roll our sandwiches in. And I'm using a couple of tablespoons of sugar, and I'm going to mix a little bit of cinnamon

in there and just toss it together. All right, now we're going to take our sandwiches

and we're just going to toss them in that sugar and cinnamon

Oh, yes, we managed to make it a little bit more fattening. This is also a great breakfast

or a great afternoon snack for the children when they come in from school

They're going to love this any time of day they can get it. So we've gotten all of our sandwiches made and now I'm just

gonna cut them diagonally and put them on their plate. Look at that! And I'm just

gonna prop them up here and let everybody come in and help themselves to

one of these wonderful sandwiches. All right, I can't wait to taste everything

Mm. Oh, Elvis, don't be cruel, baby. So good, y'all

Y'all come on down here because we've still got something else to taste

Our banana casserole. Oh my gracious. Look at that. You're going to be so stinking surprised when you taste this casserole

It's out of this world. I think your family's going to love it

I'm going to finish eating my casserole, and when we come back, I'm going to be showing you how to put together a quick, simple, and delicious banana brownie pizza

Kind of sounds like a banana split, doesn't it? Remember, today, Paula is going bananas

I want to share with y'all a quick, easy, wonderful recipe for a banana split brownie pizza

Our marinara sauce is going to be made up of one softened 8-ounce package of cream cheese

two tablespoons of butter, one of the small cans of crushed pineapple that's been drained

and we're just going to mix those together using a hand mixer. So, voila, our marinara sauce

Now, we're just going to take this and spread it onto our brownie pizza

All you start with is a store-bought box brownie mix. and you've got your crust

Now, for my pizza, I'm using strawberries and sliced bananas. In fact, move on down the counter because I've already got one put together

that I want to show you. We have taken the pizza. We've gotten our marinara sauce on there, our strawberries, our bananas

and you can see that I've configured this into a beautiful star shape

Now, to finish it off, I'm going to take a couple of handfuls of chopped nuts

and I'm using pecans. And now I'm gonna top it off with a little chocolate

And I'm just gonna drizzle this with a regular chocolate syrup. Using a pizza cutter

I'm just gonna come in here and slice this into wedges just like that

How's that for a piece of pizza? Mmm. Mmm. You're gonna love it

I hope that y'all have had a good time today going bananas with old Paula

What can I say about Elvis' favorite sandwich? Try it with the cinnamon and the sugar

Gives it a whole different twist. And don't miss these curry-crusted bananas

It goes perfectly with that piece of pork. And what a hoot is this cheesy ham and banana casserole

I think it's probably going to be the surprise recipe of the day

And if you've got extra bananas hanging around, don't forget about this banana split brownie pizza

It's like eating your banana split in a slice. It's out of this world

So our time is up together. And as always, I send you loving best dishes from my kitchen to yours

Go bananas y'all