Lately I have been on a dried food kick. Last week I bought banana chips (so much fat!), dried coconut and crystalized ginger from Aldi. None of this is healthy. It is much better for you to just eat a banana rather than the banana chips, but they are sooo good! Adam and I received this food dehydrator as a wedding gift so I thought I should use it. 

I have not had plantains since I left Miami 3 years ago. I could have had the chance last weekend at a Mexican restaurant that I was at, but I was too full to order them. I love plantains when they are served sweet more like a dessert rather than salty. I have also been loving the flavor of coconut lately, I have it in my my milk, my water and eat it dried so why not create a coconut plantain chip?

Plantains are similar to bananas, but are more starchy and less sweet. When I first saw a plantain I thought it was just a large banana. The more ripe the plantain the sweeter it will be. In order to peel it you need to cut off the ends and make slits with a knife, then peel the skin off and slice it.

 

In order to give the plantain the coconut flavor I soaked the slices in sweetened coconut cream and water for 60 minutes prior to the cooking process. This allowed some of the coconut flavor to transfer to the plantain.

This is fairly easy to do even if you don’t have a dehydrator. It is actually faster if you don’t have a dehydrator. You can use your oven!  I did like the taste of the dehydrated plantains more than the oven baked plantains. The cool thing about dried fruit is that it lasts a lot longer than fresh fruit.