Lekker: Grilled Bananas with Chocolate & Peanut Butter Sauce

I am not a HUGE dessert person. I used to be, used to have a huge sweet tooth just like my Dad for cake, brownies, cookies, the works. I *had* to have a bite of something sweet after dinner. I'm not sure if I've grown out of it as my taste buds have matured, or if I simply have more control over myself (that'd be a first) or if I just subconsciously make up for lost time when I'm PMSing (likeliest scenario.) However, there's just something about the classic flavour combination of bananas and chocolate I've always loved, and in my "younger years" that meant spooning Nutella on top of a banana and calling it dessert. I'm certainly not above that now, but I desperately try to keep Nutella out of the house so that when I DO succumb to a chocolate craving, it's not half-a-jar's worth via spoon, in classic white girl style.

Too bad I discovered chocolate sauce on my most recent "cravings hunt" through the pantry.  DAMMIT! Curse you, PMS.

Since I am participating in this societal farce of pretending to be an actual sophisticated grown up, I decided to put a minute bit of effort into making my dessert this night. I think it took me all of 7 minutes to put together, and the simple act of grilling the bananas and whipping up an easy peanut butter sauce elevated these humble ingredients to something I would totally serve to guests. Have you ever smelled a grilled banana? It's incredible. The natural sugars in the fruit become carmelised over the high heat and become so sweet and delicious I could happily eat them plain--did, often, as a child, though sometimes with some brown sugar sprinkled o'er top--but given my aforementioned "condition"...these were doused in chocolate.

Grilled Bananas with Chocolate & Peanut Butter Sauce

What You Need
It's easy to duplicate this recipe for multiple people if you use your head; I've written it as if you are #foreveralone/saucily-single-by-choice (however you'd like to rationalise *that* on any given day) like me, and/or just extremely selfish over your dessert...also like me.

1 banana
A small schmear of butter, salted or unsalted, whatever spread you normally use (I use Earth Balance, which I am batshit crazy about because it's the best non-dairy spread I've ever tried that is not full of scientific synthetic garbage...but that is the topic for a different rant-y blog post)
1 T creamy peanut butter
~1/2 tablespoon milk, cream, or half-and-half, whatever you have on hand, hell I don't care if you use coffee creamer
1 T chocolate syrup (HAHAHA let's be real here, if you're PMSing you know it's going to be more)

What You Do
1. Ready? Okidoke, so if you're like me and it's about as cold as my bitter frozen heart outside (that's 30 degrees, to be exact) there's no grilling going on because you're not insane. Instead, you have a grill pan inside, (which everyone should have, they are awesome!) usually a cast iron skillet with little grill-like thingies on the bottom. I don't know the technical term for it. "Grill ridges"? Just look at the picture in a second! Heat that sucker up over medium high heat.

2. Slice your banana down the middle, lengthwise, leaving the peel on. Butter the cut sides a bit. Press them facedown onto the hot grill pan and let them sizzle for a few minutes.

3. Meanwhile, in a teeny bowl whisk together the peanut butter and whatever dairy mixer you chose to make a sauce. Adjust the amount of dairy depending on how thick or thin you want your sauce to be. This is totally your show. It's nice to be in control of things, isn't it?

4. Rotate the bananas a bit so you can get some appeeling (hahahaha) alternating grill marks on the bananas for a few more minutes.

When they're ready, flip them over and grill peel side DOWN for just about a minute. Transfer to a plate and drizzle your peanut butter sauce and chocolate sauce all over, and CHOW DOWN on those bad boys.

Then, if you're like me, immediately get up and make another serving.