Our Family Table...Featuring Nick's Southern Banana Pudding

Our Family Table

Happy Thanksgiving

As we gather together with family again for Thanksgiving dinner, Darling and I are so grateful for so much more than the fabulous meal that gets turned out every year.

We are aware that today's love and laughter will become the memories of the children and grandhchildren. Those comforting thoughts will carry them through their lives. They are beginning  to create new memories as they celebrate with their own families. My hope is that they will be inspired by their holidays past, just as we keep those lively Thanksgiving dinner memories from our Mississippi childhood deep within our hearts.

Nick's Southern Banana Pudding

2 cups of granulated sugar

1/2 cup confectioners sugar

2 cans evaporated milk

4 large eggs

3 tablespoons of flour

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 pounds bananas - ripe but firm

2 box vanilla wafers

Separate your eggs into two separate bowls. You willuse the yokes in the pudding and put the whites in
a meringue. In a medium sauce pan mix your sugar and flour. It'seasier to mix dry ingredients. Next stir in your milk. Lightly beat your egg yokes. Stir the beaten egg yokes into your sugar/flour/milk mixture. Heat this mixture over very low heat, stirring frequently. The mixture will gradually thicken. Stir in the vanilla extract. Allow mixture to cool.

Slice your bananas. Put down a layer vanilla wafers across the bottom of a glass baking dish. Also line the sides with vanilla wafers. Put down a layer of pudding, then bananas. Continue alternating layers until all of your mixture is used up. Make sure mixture is cooled before topping with meringue. You will have some vanila wafers left over.

Mix your egg whites on high until they start to thicken. Continue mixing while stirring in your confectioners sugar. When you can lift your mixer from the mixture and the meringue forms a little peak it is whipped enough. Spread meringue across the top of your banana pudding. Place in over preheated to 350 degrees and bake until golden brown about 20 - 25 minutes.

The banana pudding will be soft/more liquid if you eat it hot, but gets firmer as it cools. Some people let the pudding sit for 24 hours so that the flavors blend more - I never could wait, besides I liked it hot.