Chocolate 'n' Peanut Butter Bananas

I had a hankering. Sue me.

All you need is a banana, peanut butter, chocolate (chips work fine), and a double boiler (or a steady watchful eye and a microwave).

I hate heating up chocolate in the microwave because it tends to scorch and scorched chocolate is uber nasty. You can tell if you scorched it because it comes out all lumpy and burned smelling.

If you wanna try the double boiler and don't have a traditional one, you can follow me and use my (better) method.

All you need is a pan of simmering water, and a glass bowl that sits on top without TOUCHING the water. The hot steam with warm the glass enough that the chocolate will melt and not ever even get close to burning.



I halved the banana, and sliced it lengthwise, and applied peanut butter to one side of each half, and put the melted chocolate on the other half.



Voila! Instant yummy chocolate peanut butter bananas in less time than it took me to decide I wanted one. You can also wrap these in plastic wrap and throw them into the freezer, which I think would be divine as well, but I was hungry in the moment.

Trader Joe's really got it going on.

The other day, I braved the Southern California rain and drove to Trader Joe's in La Mesa. I wish there was one a bit closer to my house, but oh well.

If you've never been to Trader Joe's, it's really a treat. I personally LOVE the grocery store. I love going up and down all the aisles and checking out all the cool stuff they have. I even make a very OCD list when I go. It's super therapeutic for me.

If you aren't sure whether or not you have a Trader Joe's near you, you can check their locations here.

Honestly when I moved to Georgia, knowing that they had both Whole Foods AND Trader Joe's in Atlanta was a HUGE selling point for me.

Yesterday consisted of at least one Trader Joe's item per meal.

I started off by having their Chicken Apple sausage; cut length wise and grilled.



I also had one egg; scrambled, and half a bagel, toasted with Better'n Peanut Butter for breakfast. You know how much I love me some Better'n Peanut Butter.



Breakfast; roughly 400 calories.

For lunch I took the Trader Joe's reduced fat Greek Salad, removed half of the feta cheese, diced up the cucumbers and tomatoes and doctored up the dressing. I dumped out about half of the dressing and to the remainder, added lemon juice, red wine vinegar, and some olive oil and oregano. It was much lighter and tasted a lot better.

On the side I had 1 tbsp each of the Garlic and Spicy Hummus from the Trader Joe's Hummus Quad. To dip I had 3 of their Corn crackers, and 1/2 of their flat bread, broken into pieces.



Lunch; roughly 330 calories.

For dinner, I tried the Trader Joe's Asparagus Risotto.  1 cup is 200 calories, and it comes frozen in the bag, ready to heat and serve. I just cooked one cup, seeing as I was the only one eating and put the rest back in the freezer.

To doctor it up, I added some more asparagus, picked fresh from the garden earlier in the day, cut it up and tossed it in.

Keeping asparagus stalks trimmed, and resting in a glass of water in the fridge helps keep them fresher longer. As they go unused, trim the stalks down and replace the water.



For my protein I grilled 2 chicken breasts with lemon and cracked pepper, drizzled lemon juice on top, added a bit of water, before putting a lid on it to cook. One for dinner, and one breast for lunch the next day. (I spread some hummus on a flat bread, and added half the second breast, shredded and folded it in half and made a mini sammie and it was so yummers.)

I also treated myself to 4oz (about 1/2 a cup) of red wine with dinner. "They" say that 4 oz's a day is a good heart healthy amount of wine and antioxidants, plus it makes you feel warm inside, and when it's raining and cold, anything warm is welcomed in with open arms.

Here's what dinner looked like.

Dinner; roughly 450 calories

The "sauce" on the chicken, is the lemon juice, water and yummy stuck to the pan bits, simmered and reduced. It had a nice tang to it, which went very well with the creme fraiche and onion in the asparagus risotto.

Better'n Peanut Butter

Peanut Butter has lately become a weakness. I know that it's a MUFA and so it's not really THAT bad for me, but the amount of fat and calories mean I don't get much of it.

Enter, Better'n Peanut Butter!

With only 50 calories and 1 gram of fat a tbsp, it's pretty much the best thing to spread on sliced bread. In fact, I've been putting it on pretty much everything. It's got a creamier texture with a bit less viscosity than regular peanut butter (meaning it doesn't hold its shape as well) , and is almost frosting like. It's made with "defatted peanut flour" so it still has the taste, without the fat. I wanted to try it on everything I had previously put regular peanut butter on, and try it out, so YOU didn't have to!



It's freaking AMAZING on apples. LOVE IT.



I substituted it for regular peanut butter in my banana oatmeal, and it was even BETTER. It's melted perfectly and mixed in so well.

I even tried a new recipe my client Sheila told me about for yummy late night snacks! I used Better'n Peanut Butter in it instead, and the beauty of this is you don't even need to know how to cook to make this! So try it!!



I started with some bananas, cut in half.



Next slice lengthwise and spread about a tbsp of Better'n Peanut Butter on them, sandwiching between the 2 banana halves.



Wrap in plastic wrap and stick um in the freezer until frozen. And then eat them, cuz they are freaking amazing. It's the perfect late night snack, cuz I can't think of many other things that go great with bananas than peanut butter, except maybe chocolate! (And um, Better'n Peanut Butter has a chocolate spread too!!)

I also spread some on my bagel this morning. I'm seriously obsessed with it. You can get it at most health food stores, I found mine at Trader Joes. I'd love to see what others come up with, so please if you use it, tried it, or made something amazing, post them in the comments.