Frozen Elvis

I was going to post a giveaway today until I found out that today marks the death of Elvis Presley, August 16, 1977.

My mom is a huge Elvis fan and just made her first pilgrimage to Graceland, which she loved.  During the Christmas holiday season (which starts right after Labor Day, as far as she is concerned) she plays the Elvis Christmas CD on repeat.

I, on the other hand, appreciate Elvis.  In college, I hung out with a group of kids who would likely be called “indie rockers”.  Our style was definitely a throwback to a different time, or a combination of different times since we regularly mixed things from the 50′s, 60′s, and 70′s.  (Growing up as kids of the 80′s–that era was shunned by most of us.)  We wore short, tight black pants, scarfs around our neck, and white belts.  We bought records (not CDs), played music on our record players, and rode scooters and old bikes around town.  We scoured the antique stores and Goodwills looking for anything that was retro.    Elvis’s music was largely absent from these college days.  Instead we preferred other rock-n-rollers of the past, Link Wray, The Ventures, Johnny Cash, the Shangri-La’s.

One of my prized possessions was a Zippo lighter with emblazoned with Elvis’ handsome, youthful face.  I didn’t even smoke but carried it around to light the unfiltered Camels of my rocker friends.

Elvis makes me think of those times.  Times that were so important to me (and still are) yet that seem so far away from my life today.  I’ll have to see if I can dig up some old photos.

While I am thinking about Elvis, I thought I would show you how I made the frozen Elvis banana pops for my “On A Stick” party a couple of weeks ago.    These are basically a frozen banana, chocolate, nuts and bacon—reminiscent of Elvis’ favorite sandwich–peanut butter, bacon and banana.

I got the idea from Matt Armendariz’s book, “On A Stick” but modified them slightly.

Here is what you need to do:

1) Cut a banana into 1 inch long chunks.  Insert toothpick and put into freezer for 1 hour.

2) While the bananas are freezing, fry up a couple of pieces of bacon until nice and crisp.  Let cool and the then cut into tiny pieces with a knife or a heavy duty food processor.

3) Crush peanuts.

4) Melt chocolate chips in the microwave (be careful not to overheat! ) or double boiler.

5) Pull bananas from the freezer and dip slowly one at a time in the melted chocolate–shaking a little to get the excess chocolate off.

6) Roll in the peanuts and then the bacon bits.

7) Store in the freezer until about ten minutes before you plan to serve them.

Enjoy!