Maduros (Sautéed Sweet Plantains)

I love Cuban food, so I was thrilled to find a recipe that made it seem easy to cook my own plantains. For those who are new to buying plantains like I was, it takes a LONG time for the plantains to get black and sweet. I got the ripest plantains my grocery store had (yellow with a few black spots) and they still took another week to get nice and black. I've made this recipe a few times now and it continues to be delicious as long as the plantains are ripe enough before cooking. It's great with Picadillo (I use the Cooking Light recipe with lean beef instead of turkey), white rice with cilantro and lime, and a fried egg. And black beans, if you have them!

Yuck. Dry, boring not at all what I expected or as wonderful as the reviews indicated. Being latin, I found this was just not right.

A perfect side--it can be fancy (we like it with the mojito shrimp recipe from Sunset) or plain (sometimes we'll have maduros along with eggs for Saturday lunch). Yes, be sure to flip after the first side caramelizes and get the second side a little brown, too.