Quick and Easy Winter treat!

I don't know about anyone else... but in the winter-time I have a much larger craving for warm foods!... and any excuse to turn the grill or oven on and to stay in the warm kitchen! Combined with school holidays, it means that I'm trying out some quick and easy afternoon snacks that I can do with the kids.

Baked bananas is one really easy afternoon treat to make... and I can almost pretend to myself that it is healthy as we are technically eating fruit! Albeit with sugar and butter... and possibly a generous helping of cream and/or ice-cream... but there is a piece of fruit!

As I said, the preparation is stupidly simple, which means that I am able to enlist the help of my toddler. It is nice to be cooking with the kids, as it means that they are learning a decent life skill... and starting to appreciate that dinner/lunch doesn't magically appear with no effort at all! Our older child is starting on more involved recipes, but it is still a bit hard to find something that is really easy enough for the young one to be involved completely in.

So, only three ingredients for this. Bananas (duh...), brown sugar and butter. I prefer the good butter with sea salt in it, otherwise known as butter with flavour. The salt does set off the sweetness of the sugar very nicely... as anyone who has had salted caramel will attest to!

Slice the bananas in half... just a quick note, there is a direction that means that you aren't slicing around a curve but straight up and down. Check carefully, you will figure it out soon enough... it will save you some effort of trying to cut and turn the knife at the same time! Lay out the banana halves on a covered tray (unless you feel like cleaning up hardened caramel off the inside of the oven!).

Layer very thin slices of butter on the banana. This is just a little bit of flavour, we don't want the bananas swimming in butter... and thin (as thin as you can make it with a decent knife) so that you can cover a decent amount of the top exposed area as possible without actually having lots of butter!

Generously sprinkle brown sugar over the top... now, I would say don't be too stingy with this part... less butter, more sugar! It is much easier to do this with your hands instead of trying to spoon it on... it is more messy, but you can spread the sugar better without it clumping all in piles.

Then grill them for about 10 minutes... this isn't an exact science, it will depend on your oven strength and also how firm you want the bananas when you take them out. However, just keep an eye on them... the sugar will melt and will start burning fast if you leave it too long. Let us just say, two @steem-monsters games... and then you need to start checking!

Get them out, and serve them up before they cool down... in the skins or out, it doesn't matter! Serve with ice cream or whipped cream. You will find that a single banana half will leave you wanting more... so, it is definitely a good idea to prepare more than you think!