Sweet Plantains with Coca Cola Recipe (Platanos en Tentacion)

Hola Amigos: Today I'm sharing with you an easy recipe to prepare Plantains! I can't get tired of this delicious and versatile fruit! No matter the stage of it's life cycle, it's good! To make this recipe you need to have the plantains as dark skinned as possible, almost black or black! It's o.k. they are not spoiled, they are perfect for this dish!
Dark plantains are easy to find at your grocery store. By the time they are out in the shelves for us to purchase, they are already brownish yellow, after that it takes only a couple of days for them to turn black.

Platanos en Tentacion or Sweet Plantains are an almost mandatory side for all of our meals. Much like fries in America or Tortillas in Mexico, plantains are loved green when they are a salty snack or like in this case, sweet and cooked slowly in butter and sugar, your favorite fruit juice or Coke. When you eat them all the time, variety is important!

A few weeks ago I made a batch to go along with my Rice and Beans with Coconut Milk, perfect together, as every meal needs a little bit of sweetness to make it even better!

If you had plantains before, let me know what's your favorite way to have them! This is just an easy recipe with a a few ingredients for days you want to have something different and tropical as part of your lunch or dinner but not necessarily as a dessert or smoothie. Hope you guys are having a great week! Keep in mind my friends, everything tastes better with a Pinch of Love!

Besitos

Lizy

Sweet Plantains with Coca-Cola

Ingredients:

3  Ripe Plantains

4 TBSP Butter or Margarine

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

1 Cinnamon Stick

Coca-Cola 

Directions: 

Peel the plantains and cut them in 2"-3" pieces. In a large pan, melt butter and brown the plantain pieces. Add sugar, cinnamon and enough Coca-Cola to cover the plantains. Cook plantains on low heat, covered until they are soft and the sauce has caramelized. About 20-30 minutes. Serve hot. Enjoy!

Prep and Cook Time :20-30 minutes                                                           Serves  4-6

Sharing my sweet side dish at these Fabulous Parties:

Lady Behind the Curtain

Spider Eggs Halloween Plantain and Cheese Fritters Recipe

Hola Amigos! Sharing with you today a quick recipe for a tasty appetizer! Sweet and Salty, Crispy and Soft with a bonus...Cheese!!! That's right!, this appetizer has it all!! even the spooky factor if you put it together the right way...like with a giant Spider!!!

I love Plantains, I can't get tired of a fruit that is edible in every stage of it's life, green, yellow and even black! We used to make these back home in Panama for weekend breakfast, or just a snack to get us going until supper later in the day.

I made mine quite big this time, after all...these particular ones are the offspring of this Giant Mamma Spider..yikes!

Do you guys have any fears or phobias? Some members of my house are not fond of spiders, I don't have a problem with them but I do with roaches (I even hate saying that name)

Well guys, enough of spiders and bugs for now, joking aside these are so good you can't have just one! I hope you give them a try this season and bring a taste of the tropics home when the weather gets cold outside!

 Hope you have a wonderful Official First Day of Fall! Remember my friends everything tastes better, with a Pinch of Love!

Besitos, 

Lizy

Spider Eggs Plantain and Cheese Fritters

Ingredients:

2-3 Yellow Plantains

Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, White Pepper, Smoked Paprika 1 Tsps each

1/8 Pd Chorizo

1 TBSP Corn Starch

1/8 Pd your favorite Cheese

Panko Bread Crumbs

Oil for frying

Directions:

Cut each plantain in 3 pieces. Cut ends too.

In a heavy pot full of water place your plantains with skin and cook for about 20 minutes until soft. Remove from fire and drain. Peel the skin of the plantain and mash as if you were making mash potatoes. 

Season with spices mentioned above and cornstarch. Add the chorizo 

Using an ice cream scoop, scoop parts of the mashed plantains, make a ball  (as if you were making meatballs), poke a whole and put a piece of your favorite cheese.

Roll the  ball in Panko Crumbs and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes for them to set.

Fry each ball on very hot oil until brown and crispy on the outside, about 2-3 minutes, watch them they turn golden very fast. Serve and enjoy

Prep time: 25 minutes                             Cook Time 3 minutes                   Serves 6-8 balls

Sharing my Spider's Offspring at these Fa-BOO-lous Parties:

Between Naps on the Porch, PandP Kitchen, Tumbleweed Contessa, Create with Joy, Feeding Big, Rain on a Tin Roof, A Pinch of Joy, Setting for Four, Huckleberry Love, Say Not Sweet Anne, The Gunny Sack, Coastal Charm, Ladybug Blessings, Chef in Training, Mandy's Recipe Box, Home Stories A to Z, Hun...What's for Dinner, Our Table for 7, Under the Table and Dreaming, DIY Home Sweet Home, Mad in Crafts, A Southern Fairytale, Jam Hands, Jembellish, Sugar Bee Crafts, Nap Time Creations, Memories by the Mile, Cozy Little House, The Well Crafted Home, Ducks'n a Row, The Everyday Home, Sew Creative, The Shady Porch, Ginger Snap Crafts, Lady Behind the Curtain, Fluster Buster, This Silly Girl's Life, Trendy Tree House, Kitchen Meets Girl, SNAP, 733 Blog, The Real Housewives of Riverton, Polkadots on Parade, Someday Crafts, We Like to Learn as We Go, My Girlish Whims, Smart School House, The 36th Avenue, 52 Mantels, The Mandatory Mooch, Sweet Haute, Saving 4 Six, Lamberts Lately, What's Cooking Love, Glamorous Bride, Live, Laugh, Rowe, The Crafty Blog Stalker, Katherines Corner, The Best Blog Recipes, Craftionary, Tidy Mom, The Girl Creative, One Tough Mother, Home Maid Simple, Kitchen Fun with my 3 Sons, 504 Main, Craft Dictator, Do Small Things with Love, Diana Rambles, Sara Howe, Living Better Together, The Jenny Evolution, Shaken Together, The Pin Junkie, Tatertots and Jello, Not Your Ordinary Recipes, Serenity You, Classy Clutter, Who Needs a Cape, Cheerios and Lattes, Too Much Time, Twig Studios, Life on Lakeshore Drive, WCFS, Your Homebased Mom, Mommifried, The Thriftiness Miss, Under the Table and Dreaming, Flamingo Toes,I Should be Mopping the Floors, Frugal Foodie Mama, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Made from Pinterest

Rapidito en Viernes=Quicky Fridays

Lasagna de Platano Maduro=Plantain Lasagna

Hola Amigos and Welcome Friday! Hope you all had a healthy and productive first week of March! Big change this weekend...Spring Forward, yeah we loose 1 hour of sleep but on the positive side, we are gaining 1 hour of daylight to have more fun outdoors working and playing with family and friends.
I'm closing my week with a Latin twist on an Italian classic, Lasagna. It's basically your favorite lasagna recipe but instead of using noodles you will use ripe plantains!

I love Plantains...they are super versatile and you can use them in every single stage, green, yellow, spotted with black dots and black! They are delicious. A few Sundays ago I had the honor of being guest blogger at my friend Cynthia's blog  Fedding Big and More, there I wrote a post just about plantains and how to cook them in all these stages I mentioned before as part of her fantastic series Around The World in 80 Sundays focusing on Panamanian Cuisine. I encourage you my dear friends to visit her blog and this post to learn more about Plantains.
Here is our recipe

Lasagna de Platano Maduro-Plantain Lasagna

Meat Sauce

1 Pound Ground Sirloin

1 Pound Ground Pork

1 Large onion chopped

2 Garlic chopped

1 can (6oz) Tomato paste

1 Large can Fire Roasted Tomatoes

1 bottle of your favorite Spaghetti Sauce

2 Dried Bay leaves

1 Teaspoon sugar

1 TPBS Italian Seasoning 

Salt and Pepper to Taste

Red Pepper Flakes to Taste

On the biggest pot you have, on medium heat, brown sirloin, pork, onion and garlic. Once browned, add tomato paste, roasted tomatoes spaghetti sauce, sugar, italian seasoning, salt and pepper, bay leaves and pepper flakes. Cover and Simmer for 45 minutes.

Bechamel Sauce

1 Stick of butter

4 TBSP flour

4 Cups Milk

1 Tsps Salt

1/2 Tsps freshly grated Nutmeg

1/4 Cup Parmesan Cheese.

On a saucepan on low-medium heat your basic roux adding the flour to the melted butter until the mix turns to a golden color . Little by little add the milk one cup at the time, whisking it so it won't stick to the bottom of your saucepan, add the cheese and keep whisking until it thickens, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and grated nutmeg.

Cheese Mix

1 16oz Container of Cottage Cheese

1 pound Mozzarella Cheese + 1 cup

2 CupsSpinach Leaves washed and rinsed

1 egg

salt and pepper to taste

Add the cheeses to a bowl, stir in the egg. Mix until the egg is incorporated to the cheese mix. Add Spinach and salt and pepper to taste.

6-8 Black Spotted or all Black Plantains

 The plantains peel very easily as I'm showing you here, cut them in an angle so you have like little diamond shaped thin slices as you can also see in the pictures.

Assemble your lasagna as you would a regular one, a little bit of meat sauce, in this case plantains instead of noodles, more meat sauce, bechamel sauce and cheese mix. Another layer of plantains, meat sauce, bechamel and cheese mix. Top it with the extra cup of mozzarella cheese.

Bake in a preheated oven at 375 degrees covered for 25 minutes. Uncover and bake for another 25 minutes. Let it cool before cutting and serving.

Listo,

Serve it with a green salad or a slice or your favorite garlic bread.

I know this is not your typical quick fixing recipe...but you can enjoy it all weekend long with plenty leftover for any other day of the week. 

The amount ingredients given in this recipe will make a regular 9x13 lasagna baking pan. I divided mine in two small ones so I can freeze one and use at a later day!

As you can see...it slices just like your regular lasagna, and believe me folks it's delicious!

I hope you enjoy my little treat today and maybe make this recipe for your family and friends one of these weekends, they would love it, even more because as you know everything tastes better with a Pinch of Love!

Besitos,

Lizy

Bringing a touch of the tropics to these Fabulous Parties:
Under the Table and Dreaming
Spatulas on Parade
My Turn (for Us)
Sassy Little Lady
Dear Creatives
Your Homebased Mom
Couponing and Cooking
The Plaid and Paisley Kitchen