I’m on a self-imposed break from Facebook including the CHK group and I have to say … I am enjoying it tremendously! I do miss talking to all the CHK friends though. February will be here soon enough and I’ll go back. The really wonderful thing about it is that I have a lovely long-time friend who is moderating and taking care of everything this month so I can refresh.

Today I’m making banana pudding. The old fashioned kind from scratch. I know some of you probably like the kind made with sweetened condensed milk and Cool Whip, I like it too actually. But, there is nothing as good as homemade banana pudding warm from the oven. Except maybe homemade rice pudding. Or chocolate pudding.

These puddings are things I made when the children were all at home. I educated all 5 at home and on snowy or cold rainy days I’d make something special like a home cooked pudding. It really is a sweet memory for me because they all enjoyed it so much.

I used a 2 quart Corning Ware round casserole dish for this recipe. You can use whatever you need to use as long as it can go in the oven to brown the meringue and hold 2 quarts of food. Meringue recipe is at the end of the pudding recipe.

Ingredients:

4 bananas peeled, sliced and tossed with a sprinkling of lemon juice to keep them from turning brown. I toss the banana slices around in the juice.

About 50 Vanilla Wafers, I used a whole box save about 6 cookies which grandbaby #4 and I ate with coffee and Ovaltine.

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup plain flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 egg yolks, save the whites for the meringue

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cup whole milk

12 ounces evaporated milk

In your casserole dish, layer the wafers and bananas. I also put a few wafers around the top of the bowl to look pretty.

In a heavy medium sized sauce pan combine the sugar, flour, salt, both milks and egg yolks using a whisk.

Put the pan over medium heat and stir constantly. It will burn if you get it too hot or stop stirring.

It takes about 7 or 8 minutes for it to get thick. Once it is thick remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract.

Pour this cooked mixture over the bananas and wafers in the casserole dish.

Now make the meringue.

Ingredients:

4 egg whites

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring.

Beat the egg whites on high and add the sugar a little at a time until stiff peaks form. Once the peaks are formed, add the vanilla, stir well and then spread the meringue over the pudding in the casserole dish.

Bring the meringue to the sides of the casserole dish and seal it to the sides using a spatula. This will keep the meringue from shrinking and pulling away from the dish.

Bake at 350*F just until browned.

If you’re in a hurry, you can put the pudding with meringue under the broiler, watch it carefully, until browned.

I prefer baking it at 350*F because it heats up the pudding as well as browning the meringue.

If you try it, I hope you enjoy it!