Supper tonight...Banana Pudding

All my kids were here...so we're feeding the multitudes. We had steak and shrimp...steak on the grill and the barbecued shrimp from a previous post. French bread with dippin' sauce. Salads.

But then...what shall we put out for dessert? Quickly? And good-ly? The Big Kid grew up an only child for 15 years, so she got the star treatment for a long time. And one of the old favorites, from waaay back, has to be:

Real Banana Pudding

2 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup sugar
2-1/2 cups milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 medium bananas
1 box vanilla wafers
1 large egg
6 egg whites
2 tablespoons sugar

Spread half the box of vanilla wafers in the bottom of a two-quart casserole. Thinly slice bananas over the vanilla wafers and top with the remaining wafers. Combine flour and sugar in a heavy saucepan, add one egg and enough milk to make a smooth paste. Add remaining milk and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, just until mixture starts to bubble. Remove from heat and add butter and vanilla. Mix well and pour over bananas and wafers. Make meringue with egg whites and two tablespoons sugar, spread over pudding and bake at 350 ° until lightly browned.

Ummmm. Banana pudding. This is one of the great pleasures in life and it DOESN'T have instant pudding in it. Slice the bananas really thin, so they meld with the pudding; and WATCH IT while it's in the oven. Be sure to use a rubber spatula to spread the meringue, so that you can make those lovely peaks. If you DO burn the top, and I've heard of people doing that, you can just peel off the burned part and rebrown.

Oh, and do not use madagascar bourbon vanilla with this recipe. It clashes.

Image borrowed from: llcskitchen.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html