Recipe: Peanut Butter, Bacon, and Caramelized Banana Sandwich

Every time I go out to eat at a restaurant, I try to figure out if I can reproduce my meal at home.  For me, the most successful restaurant to home conversions are basic foods that can be easily assembled.  (Confession: For some reason, any time it comes to sauces I am intimidated.  To me, sauces = fancy, difficult, and daunting.  I have no idea why.)  This recipe is super easy, and is inspired by a sandwich I had at one of my favorite restaurants, Mendocino Farms.

Mendo, as we call it, is a casual place that specializes in soups, salads, and sandwiches with delicious, often locally-sourced ingredients.  Their original menu included a sandwich called the PB3, or something along those lines.  It was a peanut butter sandwich with apples and bananas and bacon, but I’ve never been a big bacon fan, so the first time I ordered, I left it off.  The sandwich was good, so I ordered it on another visit, but this time I forgot to ask them to hold the bacon.

Holy cow.  Mind blown.  The addition of bacon added just the right level of saltiness and smokiness to the sandwich, and perfectly balanced the sweet apples and bananas.  Bacon is now my new best (sandwich) friend.  To keep things healthy, I used turkey bacon in this recipe, but the regular kind works great, too.

Ingredients:

1/2 of an apple, thinly sliced (I prefer Gala)
1/2 of a banana, sliced
2 slices bacon (turkey or regular)
Candied walnuts (almonds would also work well)
Peanut butter
Bread (do yourself a favor and get some better bread than I used here)

1. Cook bacon
2. Slice apples and bananas
3. Caramelize bananas by cooking over medium heat for a few minutes per side
4. Spread peanut butter on two slices of bread, then layer with other apples, bananas, bacon, and nuts

To elevate this sandwich even further, try cooking it on a panini press.