Nanny's Banana Pudding

My wife got this recipe from "Nanny" and has been the only one to make it for years. I made some for St Patrick's Day and added green food color to the pudding for a festive look. It still tastes just as good and is really easy to make. (Oh, and Nanny is our daughter's local adopted grandmother since the real ones lived far away. She really, really spoiled them just like a real grandmother.)

Collect up these ingredients to use when constructing the pudding in a 9x13 baking dish. Of course, there will be no baking going on but the clear pyrex dish looks pretty with the cookies showing on the sides.

• 1 package vanilla wafers - The right size holds about 80 cookies. I think the Nabisco Nilla brand tastes better.
• 1 small bowl of Cool Whip - Again I have preferences. I like the "more creamy" kind that says it contains real cream. You could also whip up a cup of whipping cream with some powdered sugar and vanilla.
• Small bag of small marshmallows - Make sure they aren't hard or overly sticky.
• 6 bananas - Get them not green and not brown. If they are too green they aren't as sweet and the brown ones look nasty in the pudding.

Prepare in a large mixing bowl:

• 2 Large pkgs instant vanilla pudding - I use Jello brand as it seems to be more fluffy and has a better taste.
• 5 c Milk - The back of the pudding box says to use 2 1/2 cups for the pie recipe. Using the smaller amount makes it a bit thicker which works well for banana pudding. (You can replace a cup of the milk with cream if you want.)

Stir well together as described on the box for two minutes. (This is the point at which you add the food coloring. Just add some and stir until you like the color.)

Then stir in half of the Cool Whip but don't stir too well so there are white streaks in the pudding.

Now to construct it. You take the large flat baking dish (9x13) and put layers as described below. Note that the top item in the list goes on  the bottom of the dish. Funny that.

•  Vanilla wafers at the bottom. Since it's glass, you put the pretty side of these cookies down (in case anyone looks at the bottom of the dish). I put enough in to completely fill the bottom one cookie thick. Save the broken ones for the inner layer.
• About 1/3 of the pudding. Try to spread it without stirring the cookies around too much. Spread it flat from side to side and corner to corner.
• Vanilla wafer around the sides. Again the pretty side of the cookies goes out. Use whole cookies and just stick them down into the pudding so they stay vertical. and visible through the glass.
• Peel 3 bananas and slice round sections. Spread the banana rounds evenly over the pudding. Press then down gently to seat them in the pudding. (This makes the next pudding layer easier to spread.)
• Another layer of the next 1/3 of the pudding. Be sure no banana is visible and try to minimize air pockets that will allow the bananas to turn brown.
• Spread a layer of marshmallows over the pudding.
• Spread a layer of cookies over the marshmallows pressing down gently to seat the cookie and marshmallow in the pudding.
• Slice up the other 3 bananas and spread those over the cookies.
• Another layer of pudding should use it all up.
• Spread the rest of the Cool Whip on top of the pudding. I like to leave some of the pudding visible around the sides of the dish.
• Add a few marshmallows and some more vanilla wafers on top to make it look nice and give a bit more crunch.

Put in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours to give the cookies time to soften and time for the pudding to set up.

Pizza Crust

Some time back I put in the recipe for Red Sauce that you can use to turn this into real Pizza.The crust recipe was on the back of a Gold Medal Flour bag sometime back in the '70s. We pasted it to a 3x5 card and have it to this day. (Jack asked for this recipe and here it is.)

Basic pizza recipe: 

If you don't know already, you make a crust, spread a thin layer of red sauce or canned tomatoes and spices, sprinkle fresh or grated Mozzarella cheese to cover, sprinkle a little dried basil or parsley or pepper to make it look pretty and cook at 450-550 degrees F for around 10 minutes, watching to make sure it doesn't burn.

You can probably guess at the variations:

• Different kinds of cheese added to the Mozzarella - Provolone, Parmesan, fresh Mozzarella and Feta are all good.
• Toppings - I like them on top of the cheese but under the cheese is also good.
• The order - Put the cheese on top and the sauce under it.
• Other sauces - Pesto or an Alfredo sauce in place of tomato sauce. Or even Queso.

How to make a crust:

12" Crust		16" Crust
1/3 c		1 c		warm water (100 F)		Measure water in measuring cup. Add yeast with just a pinch of flour and a pinch of sugar. Let stand for a few minutes until frothy unless you get impatient.
1 1/2 tsp (1/2 pkg)		1 Tbsp (1 pkg)		dry yeast
1 c (100 g)		2 1/2 c (300 g)		Flour		Add to mixing bowl and stir together
1/2 tsp		1 tsp		Salt
1/2 tsp		1 tsp		Sugar
1 Tbsp		2 Tbsp		Olive Oil (or any vegetable oil)		Add to dry ingredients and stir.

Add the water mixture to the dry ingredients and stir together as best you can. Then pour it out onto a floured surface. (A counter top works well.)

Knead the dough but not too much. Roll it into a ball and  coat with olive oil. Let it set for at least 10 minutes. that gives the liquid time to soften the tiny bits of wheat. If you can, wait about 30 min for a better yeasty flavor. You can make it the night before and let it rise at this point in the refrigerator. (But I never seem to think ahead.)

After the interminable wait, knead it a bit more. The more you knead it, the tougher the dough gets. Tough isn't really a bad characteristic for pizza dough. You could split the larger recipe in two and knead half a lot and half a little. A/B testing on pizza is always fun with friends.

Now you want to roll it out flat and, preferably, round. The round shape is traditional but any shape actually tastes the same. Put just a tiny bit of new flour on the countertop to keep the dough from sticking. Use more flour as you go but only if it seems sticky or too wet.

Squash the ball of dough flat to start.

Sometimes I use a rolling pin if I have one handy. Roll the dough out flat, turning as you go. Turning helps keep it round. I've found that after a bit of rolling you need to pick it up and sort of stretch it over your knuckles trying not to put holes in it. There is definitely a knack. Lay it back on the counter and roll it to be more even one more time once it gets to the right diameter. You have to decide how thick or thin you like it. (Its hard to get it really thin without getting holes. If this is your goal, be sure to knead it more ahead of time.)

Sometimes I gently poke the ball with fingers spreading it out into shape by hand. You can pick it up and stretch it on your knuckles. Again, avoid holes. Make it thinner in the middle and a little thicker around the edges.

Your pizza crust is now laying on the counter and it the shape and thickness you want. At this point, you need a carrier of some sort. The easy solution is to grease a cookie sheet or pizza pan and put the new crust on it. This will make good pizza but the crust will not be crispy. I never found a way to fool with the oven temperature to make it work out.

In a real pizza restaurant, they would have a pizza oven that is basically a thick plate of iron. You heat up the oven and the iron holds the heat. They place the prepared dough on the iron plate and the heat stored in the metal make sure the crust is crispy. They have special, giant spatula things they use to position the pizza. It only goes into a pan once they remove it from the oven.

So, how do we get our crust crispy without a special oven and tools?

I have done it three ways and all three are based on the idea of getting the heat built up in something and placing the pizza on it.

• Use a baking stone - This is a round, flat piece of ceramic, terracotta or stone. I've found a 16" ceramic tile from Home Depot works very well (and it's cheap).
• Use a heavy, flat, oven-safe glass pan - We had a perfect one. Round, flat, Pyrex, about 14-16 inches across.
• Use the bottom of a cast-iron skillet - In this case, you put the skillet in the oven upside-down. The pizza cooks on the side usually reserved to sit on the burner. This limits the size of pizza you can do.

So, put one of these in the oven and turn to setting to 450-550 degrees F. Do this far enough ahead that it gets to temperature and then it will collect heat for about 15 minutes after the oven finished pre-heating.

Meanwhile, back at the counter, spread out a sheet of foil or parchment in a square. I make my pizzas just the size that matches the width of the roll (or a little oblong). Tear it off just long enough so all four sides of the square are equal. (See, high school geometry wasn't totally useless.) Cover foil with a thin sheen of olive oil. Not parchment. (I use the spray on kind because I'm lazy.) Put the crust on top of it. You will use the corners sticking out to lift the pizza into the oven and remove it. (The parchment or foil is so thin that you won't need a hot pad. It doesn't hold enough heat to hurt you.) Parchment isn't quite as strong as foil so be careful.

Once the crust is on the carrier (whether its the cookie sheet, parchment or the foil), you can repair any holes by stretching one side over the other and pressing down. You can adjust it to be just the right size. Also, fold a half-inch of the outside edge over to make that little lip that gets no sauce. You can also just pinch it a bit to raise up a bump of dough there on the outside. Or, if you aren't putting very much in the way of topping, just leave it flat around the edge.

Here is my favorite way to make it:

• Add the tomato "sauce". Choose one:
1. Spread a thin layer of red sauce. Not too much to be soupy or soggy. Just enough to add that italian spice flavor.
2. Take whole canned tomatoes and gently poke and stroke to remove the seeds and juice. Put these randomly around the crust. Sprinkle with thinly sliced onion or onion powder and thinly sliced fresh garlic or garlic powder. Sprinkle with basil, dried or chopped fresh.
• Sprinkle grated Mozzarella cheese over the "sauce". Just enough to almost hide the red of the sauce. Or use random chunks of fresh mozzarella in a pleasing pattern.
• Add a liberal number of fresh Mushroom slices.
• Be generous with those tiny donuts of black olives sliced.
• Grate a bit of fresh Parmesan over the top.
• Sprinkle some dried basil around to make it look pretty.

If you are using something like the baking stone or heavy disk, it should be in the oven and already fully heated. In that case, work quickly to open the oven, make sure the rack is far enough down to get the pizza in and pick up the pizza by the foil corners. Do this carefully so it won't tear and won't fall apart. Then put the pizza on top of the baking stone (or whatever). Don't touch the wall of the oven. It hurts. [If you are using a cookie sheet or pizza pan, just put it in the oven quickly to avoid letting it cool down too much.]

Cook for 5-10 minutes. It might be 8. It might be 17 minutes. It varies a lot depending on the temperature of the ingredients and how much water is in them, as well as your particular oven.

It will be done when you can see a bit of bubbling going on, the crust is brown around the edges and there might be just a hint of brown here and there on the cheese.

Remove carefully and slice into triangles.