Cut the banana in half both ways and smear with peanut butter.

Place the pieces together like a sandwich and dig in!

First impressions: The bananawich was tasty, but messy. Be prepared to lick peanut butter and banana goo off of your fingers. My banana would have benefited from another day or two of ripening, so I’ll have to try this again.

I found out about the bananawich from Skwigg, who in turn heard about it from The Fitnessista. Perhaps one day, my children, you too shall post about the bananawich and tell people you in turn heard about it from PastaQueen.

I grabbed this recipe from Erin Shea’s site, Lose the Buddha over a year ago, though she calls them peanut butter pancakes. I prefer to call them crepes since it sounds more egg-like. I’m sure someone will tell me why it’s absolutely erroneous for me to be calling them crepes, but I don’t care, they’ll always be crepes to me. I also doubled the recipe because I am tall and hungry.

Peanut Butter Crepes

1 large egg

5 egg whites

1 Tablespoon Splenda (or sugar or another sweetener)

2 Tablespoons peanut butter

Combine ingredients in a blender or with a mixer in a bowl. Lightly coat a skillet with spray-on oil and heat on high. Pour half the mixture onto the skillet, swirling the pan around to coat the entire skillet in the egg mixture. Once the mixture is starting to thicken, flip it over and cook the other side. Remove from pan. Repeat for the rest of the mixture. Enjoy!

First, I separate the egg whites. Four years ago this seemed insanely difficult, but now I do it with ease. I used to feel bad about dropping the egg yolks down the garbage disposal, but I got over it, especially when I realized the egg whites have less calories and more protein than the yolks. Next I dump in the Splenda (or in this case, the generic Kroger brand with identical packaging, Apriva) and peanut butter and mix the whole concoction with my hand mixer.

As I’m mixing, I’m also heating up the skillet which I’ve sprayed with oil. I pour half the mixture into the pan and let it cook a while.

I swirl the pan around to cook more of the batter around the edges, then wait for it to firm up a bit.

Next comes the tricky part. I have to flip the crepe, but it’s still pretty runny on top. Usually I end up splattering egg whites on the stove and folding the crepe strangely. As long as it all gets cooked, I don’t really care. Pretty is overrated.

When that crepe’s done, I take it out of the skillet and cook another. Then I have a tasty, peanut buttery breakfast. The kitties agree! They always lick the plate clean with their tongues, which helps cut down on the dishes I have to do.

I might start microwaving my peanut butter after I take it out of the fridge from now on. Bed, Bath and Beyond sends me lots of coupons, but I don’t want to use them all on new sets of measuring spoons.

Peanut Butter Cookies

South Beach Diet – Phase 1

1 cup smooth peanut butter

1 cup Splenda

1 egg

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix ingredients together. Drop teaspoon sized balls onto greased cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes.

These cookies were pretty good, but you definitely need some milk nearby to get the dry taste out of your mouth. I found it pretty amazing that you can actually make cookies without flour. They’d probably taste better with the flour, but these weren’t bad at all. Bonus points for being quick to make.

The only problem I had was that I couldn’t eat just one. I wanted to eat 4, which included more nuts than I should be having in a day. I have this problem with all cookies and small serving food though. Whenever I make whole wheat bread, I end up chomping on 3 slices or half the loaf.

Final Assessment: I won’t throw out the recipe, but it’s not going into regular rotation.