Birthday Dinner

I'm back! And better than ever. Ok that may be an overstatement. But I'm doing well and am putting up a long overdue post. In my defense I did loose my camera which slowed the whole posting business.

Anyhow, for my birthday last week I had family dinner with Chad(cousin), Lindsey (cousin's wife), Kenna (cousin), Evan (cousin's finance), and Mike (good friend from school). The original plan for the evening involved going out, but honestly I am more of a homebody than anything else, as you know Miss Xochi, and I love to cook for people and entertain, so this was the perfect way to celebrate my birthday. It was actually a gift for me to be able to cook and then just relax at home.

When deciding what to make I kept thinking of the Gordon Ramsay lamb shanks that I have posted on here before ( http://amigascucina.blogspot.com/2010/03/braised-lamb-shanks.html ). The sauce haunts my dreams it's so good. So, I made the lamb shanks, mashed potatoes, roasted asparagus, and for dessert drunken bananas. By the end of the meal I was so happy from all the good food vibes and happy family and friends time. I slept so deeply after everyone left, it was incredible.
Pictures from the meal are provided by Lindsey, my cousin's wife. She brought her camera over to take pictures of the food and I'm so glad she did. I LOVE Lindsey! She's the best. We forgot to photograph dessert though. I must had been too blissed-out over the food to remember, plus beer and things were consumed which make me relaxed and more forgetful.

Each of us had a whole shank for ourselves, which means that there was A LOT of food. Out of all of us, only Mike entered the "clean plate club". Everyone else had food left on our plates. That worked out just fine for Ruby though, she loved getting leftovers.

I wish you could have been there Xochi! I kept offering people tastes of the sauce as I was making it. I LOVED it! If I had been by myself I would have been a bit more amorous with the sauce. I think everyone else felt just as passionately as I did about the sauce, although it's hard to imagine someone equaling the intensity of feeling I have about that stuff. I wish I could make lip gloss out of it. *Yum*

So despite the lack of pictures of the final product, I would like to post the instructions for the "Drunken Bananas". It's basically just bananas foster, but I get a little scared/lazy to light it on fire. So it's simple, basic and completely delicious.

Ingredients

4 ripe bananas
2 shots brandy (you can use rum or any other brown alcohol I think, but I had brandy for cooking at my house so I used it)
2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp brown sugar (I didn't use measuring utensils for this, but guessing worked out pretty well).
1 tsp cinnamon

Start by slicing the bananas. Then you melt the butter in a large sauce pan. Add the bananas. Coat the bananas with butter. After the bananas are coated add brown sugar and cinnamon. Add the brandy. Do not pour directly from the bottle to the pan. I guess this is a fire hazard. I just put the alcohol into a shot glass first. Then continue to cook the bananas until the liquid is a sauce-like consistency. This help the dessert from not tasting too much like alcohol and gives all the flavors the chance to saturate each other.

Serve over ice cream and enjoy! I've also found that these bananas make a great filling for crepes. You could even put the ice cream or nutella in the crepe with them, but that might be taking things just a little too far.