Banana Pudding

Sometimes when you're on a roll in the kitchen, taking time to put on an apron just seems like too much.  At least that's what I keep trying to tell my daughter, Lydia.  Lydia is my dress-up girl, so the apron-thing is an absolute must when working in the kitchen for her.  I obviously would much rather end up with grease splatters and flour all over my front.  :-)But we have been having fun in the kitchen. 

Kind of on that note, Darin and everyone else in his company received a  6% paycut at the beginning of the year.  It hurt!  6% doesn't sound like a lot until it's broken down into $$ signs.  For us, it is basically what our food budget was.  So we have had to really roll up our sleeves and find a cheaper way to cook around here.  I've never been a big processed foods fan, and now I'm even less of a fan.  I've vowed to completely cut out of our grocery trips anything that comes in a box.  We have been making EVERYTHING from scratch.  Over the weekend, we made banana pudding completely from scratch - even the Nilla Wafers.  Of course I don't have time to stand in the kitchen cooking everything from scratch, so our pudding was a family affair.  Darin and Jack made the vanilla wafers while Lydia and I were grocery shopping.  I made some vanilla pudding that same day after dinner.  The next morning, Jack lined the dish with the vanilla wafers, Lydia mixed in a few bananas into the pudding then dumped it into the dish, Jack finished off with his very special "battle formation" with the cookies on top, and then all of us (Darin, me, Ben, Lydia, Jack, Henry & Sophia) gathered round to finish off the leftover cookies.  YUM!

It was so easy, and a lot of fun to do as a family.  Here's our recipes:

Vanilla Wafers

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 c. milk

Directions:
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Combine dry ingredients; add to creamed mixture and mix well. 
Drop by teaspoonfuls 2 in. apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 350° for 12-15 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Remove to wire racks to cool. Yield: about 3-1/2 dozen.
NOTE: Let these cookies sit overnght. If you try them when they first come out of the oven, or anytime on the first day, they won't taste like "real" nilla wafers.  But the next day....oh yeah, baby.

Vanilla Pudding
2 eggs
3/4 c. sugar
5 T. flour
1 T. butter
pinch of salt
1 T. vanilla

Directions:
In a bowl, mix eggs, sugar and flour.  On the stove, heat milk and then pour in the sugar mixture.  Stir until thick, then take off stove and add butter, salt and vanilla. (I tripled this recipe for our pudding)