Pam's Banana Cream Pie
by:  Joyce Moseley Pierce

My husband's favorite dessert is banana cream pie.  Anyone who knows him can tell you that.   His mother used to make it for him by using the Jello brand vanilla or banana instant pie filling and Cool Whip.  That was pretty simple to duplicate, and for years that's what I've made for him.  However, I'm trying to get away from all the manufactured ingredients made to taste like real foods, and decided this weekend to make a pie with his sister's recipe.  Pam is known for being a great baker, so I knew it had to be good if I just didn't mess it up!

To show you how conditioned I am to mixing up the Jello and milk in a bowl and dumping it into a pie crust, the hardest part of this recipe was trying to figure out how to cook it!  With egg yolks, I knew it had to be cooked, but I couldn't imagine mixing the ingredients and pouring them over the sliced bananas and then baking it in the oven.  Finally, after a day or two of thinking about it, the light bulb went off.  You cook the mixture on the stove and THEN pour it over the bananas in the pie shell.  While Pam makes hers with a Graham cracker crust, I used a Pillsbury roll out pie crust that I cooked first. 

We had friends over for dinner and everyone there loved it.  I'm sure you will, too.  Thanks, Pam!

Here it is:

Bake a single pie crust or use graham cracker crust
slice one banana and place it in the cooled crust

Whisk the following ingredients in a pan on the stove:
1 can 14 oz sweetened condensed milk
3 egg yolks, beaten
3 tablespoons corn starch
1 2/3 cup  water
2 tablespoons of butter or margarine
1 teaspoon of vanilla

This mixture thickens quickly so don't turn the heat up too high.  I whisked it the entire time and it took less than 5 minutes.

Pour this mixture into the pie crust and cool.  When you're ready to serve, add Cool Whip to the top.  I went all the way and used real whipped cream, but you're adding 50 calories per tablespoon, so if you're trying to cut calories, and don't mind the artificial ingredients, use Cool Whip.

Copyright 2006 Joyce Moseley Pierce.  Joyce is a freelance author and contributor to the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.  She's the creator of All They'll Need to Know and publishes the Family First weekly ezine.  Visit her website, www.emersonpublications.com