…in my freezer.

Seriously, there’s a whole comic book in the works and everything.

Tonight, it was a particularly useful skill–I mean, superpower–because it was 84F today and while I really wanted to fry some strawberry pies or bake a cheesecake, I just didn’t want to heat up the apartment and thereby waste the hard effort the air conditioner was putting out in order to keep Josh from melting into a puddle of human goo.  Clearly what we needed tonight was a nice, cool dessert, a good compliment to the (grilled) dinner of barbecue pork sandwiches and (store-bought and therefore no cooking necessary) chips and raw (i like crunchy) carrots.  So I fell back on one of my favorite healthy cold desserts: frozen bananas dipped in chocolate.

Wait a minute! You want to yell out in a classically drawn speech bubble with italicized, bolded AND uppercased letters.  How healthy can a banana be dredged in chocolate?

Well, duh–it’s dark chocolate.

And coconut.  And walnuts.  So that’s like, calcium and healthy fat and antioxidants all right there.

Moving on (at the speed of melting chocolate, another of my superpowers), this dessert is one of the easiest ever to make, and less rich than say, my strawberry tiramisu and less formal than the semifreddo (mmmm semifreddo).

This recipe serves 6; I cut it down to just make one banana each for me and Josh, but I’m putting the full recipe (adapted from a Whole Foods recipe) below:

Chocolate Dipped “This Day is” Bananas!
Serves 6

3 large bananas, peeled and halved crosswise
6 ounces dark chocolate chips
1/3 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
6 popsicle sticks (or 3 bamboo skewers, cut in half)
2 tbsp chopped walnuts

Carefully push a popsicle stick into the cut end of each banana half, leaving about 11/2 inches of the stick poking out. Transfer bananas to a parchment paper-lined sheet tray and freeze until just solid, 30 to 45 minutes.

Toast coconut and walnuts in a small pan until just browned and fragrant.  Transfer to a wide, shallow dish.

Microwave chocolate in a medium bowl, stirring every 20 to 30 seconds, until chocolate is completely smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. (Or, melt chocolate in the top of a double boiler.)  Pour into a tall heat-resistant container, like a glass measuring cup, for easy dipping.

Remove bananas from freezer. Working with one banana half at a time, hold bananas by the stick and dip straight into the chocolate.  Pull out and sprinkle banana on all sides with some of the coconut and wanuts, allowing anything that doesn’t stick to fall back into the dish. Return banana halves to baking sheet and freeze until chocolate is set, about 10 minutes.

Eat!