Not Yo' Mama's Banana Pudding

On Friday, I had some friends over at lunchtime to listen to music played on vinyl records.  Every so often, we have these parties at my house, they bring the pizza, and I provide the beverages and the music.

My dad was a radio personality (disk jockey) from the 1950’s through the 70’s and he would bring home records that were old or not the format that the station played.  My sister and I reaped great rewards when our dad worked at a country music station in the 70’s, because he would bring home all the rock music for us.

When our dad passed away, my sister and I went through boxes containing thousands of records and kept ones that sounded interesting or that we had played in our youth and we sold the rest.  For curiosity sake, I saved some records sung by interesting artists like: John Wayne, Marylyn Monroe, and Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen.  There are also some interesting titles like the Al Smith Hit: I Picked a Booger when I Picked You (it must be a country song).

My wife and I also have about fifty old LP (Long Play vinyl record albums for readers under 30 years of age) that we collected in our youth.  Our group’s lunch parties consist of eating pizza, listening to music and chatting.

I decided for last Friday’s gathering to make a dessert to share.  About two years ago, I made a Paula Deen dessert: Not Yo’ Mama’s Banana Pudding, after seeing it demonstrated on the FoodNetwork on TV.  I hunted through my saved recipes and could not find the recipe printout, so I found the recipe on the FoodNetwork.com site.  I have included the direct link to the recipe at the bottom of this post so you don’t have to watch the video to get the recipe.

I knew that I would be making this dessert one day, so I already had the two packages of Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies in our pantry.  On a recent trip to the store, I purchased the cream cheese, pudding mix and a very large container of Cool Whip.

Friday morning I got out our 9x13 inch glass-baking pan and lined the bottom with the Chessmen cookies.  The cookies just covered the bottom of the pan without having to cut any to fit.  Next, I sliced seven bananas into the pan covering the cookies on the bottom.  I didn’t worry about getting an even banana/cookie covering, but just loosely spread out the bananas over the cookies.

I used the paddle attachment of our Kitchen Aid stand mixer to combine the package of cream cheese and can of condensed milk until creamy.  In a medium sized metal bowl I mixed added the pudding mix and two cups of milk.  The directions say to use a hand mixer on the pudding mix, so I got out our mixing wand with a whisk attachment and started mixing.  I quickly discovered that because the sides of the bowl were too short, I was throwing pudding mix all over the kitchen.  I switched to an old fashion hand whisk and had the pudding mixed in about two minutes.

I used the whisk to fold the cream cheese/condensed milk mixture into the pudding (not the same order as the recipe), then I added about 2 /3 of the container of whipped topping because I had purchased a 16 ounce container and the recipe calls for 12 ounces.  I folded all the ingredients together being careful not to over mix the filling.

I spread the filling over the bananas in the pan and then covered the top with more Chessmen cookies.  Because the pan has sloping sides, I had to break some of the cookies in half for one end to cover the filling.  I covered the pudding with plastic wrap and placed it in the refrigerator until I was ready to serve it.

Our group enjoyed our time of eating and chatting.  Once we had consumed the pizza, I brought out the banana pudding.  One person asked me if my wife made the dessert for us.  “No, I made it!”  I replied.  I found that to keep the pieces served from being mangled, you need to cut around each cookie for a serving.  This is because the cookies on the top and bottom don’t directly line up.  We all enjoyed a nice cool piece of banana pudding.

This cool and creamy dessert would be great on a warm summer afternoon.  Even though the filling is made with vanilla pudding, the overall taste when eating the dessert is of banana.  My wife and I enjoyed a piece of this dessert after our dinner that night and I took several squares to some of our neighbors to enjoy – like one of my 45 records by John Ono Lennon: Instant Karma.

Find the recipe here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/not-yo-mamas-banana-pudding-recipe/index.html

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell