Banana Pudding Pie, from Country Living Magazine

Crust:
50 vanilla wafers
2 tablespoon dark brown sugar
2 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon sea salt (more if using kosher salt)
5 tablespoon melted butter
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Filling:
3 egg yolks
2 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon powdered gelatin (optional:  see note.)
1/4 cup cold milk
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup milk
1 vanilla bean, pod and scraped seeds
1 1/2 teaspoon butter
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup fresh whipped cream
5 tablespoon caramel sauce, plus extra for garnish
3 medium bananas, sliced

1.  For the crust: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Crush vanilla wafers and toss with brown sugar, 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, and sea salt. Stir in melted butter and vanilla extract and press mixture into a 9-inch pie plate. Bake for 10 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

2. For the filling: Chill a medium bowl over a larger bowl filled with ice water and set aside. In another bowl, whisk egg yolks, cornstarch, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, and sea salt together until very thick and light in color. Set aside. Sprinkle gelatin over 1/4 cup cold milk. Let sit for 5 minutes.

3.  Bring heavy cream, remaining 3/4 cup milk, and vanilla bean to a boil in a medium pot. Remove from heat, slowly whisk cream mixture into reserved egg mixture, pour back into pot, and stir over medium-low heat until it reaches a boil. Pour into chilled bowl, remove vanilla bean pod, and stir in gelatin mixture, butter, and vanilla extract. Let cool and fold in whipped cream.

4.  Spread caramel sauce over crust. Line with 2 1/2 bananas and top with pudding. Chill for 2 hours. Decorate with remaining banana slices and caramel.

Note:  this never set up very well for me, so I ended up serving it frozen.  It was good, but next time I hope it sets up better.  I think I might have screwed up the gelatin part.  That said, you could make it vegetarian by skipping the gelatin and freezing it.

It was a gorgeous weekend, just fantastic, especially for November.  We started an adventure on Friday night, with a trip to Ames to spend the night with Mubby and Skittergramps on the way out to Nanna and Papa’s farm in southwest Iowa.  We explained to Miles ahead of time that we were going to see Mubby, Skittergramps, Nanna, Papa, and Uncle Michael, which he thought was cool, but he automatically added Uncle Tyler to that list and didn’t seem to believe me when I said we weren’t going to see him.

Uncle Tyler or not (though he did have a great weekend over in Lincoln; something good happened in the world of sports, I hear), we had fun.  Miles was a little scared of the farm animals, but he liked the animal toys Nanna bought him, and he had a great time playing catch and peek-a-boo with Papa.

Also, I got to indulge in one of my favorite hobbies related to going a-visitin’:  reading the periodicals of others.  It’s always interesting to take a look at magazines I don’t subscribe to.  At my parents’ house I read Consumer Reports, The Sun, Utne Reader, and Oprah (diverse group, no?).  At the farm I read Country Living, which as far as I can gather is mostly about decorating, but it also has an interesting feature a la Antiques Roadshow where people show things they acquired one way or another and the expert tells them whether the thing is worth $4 or $5000.  I bet more often they’re actually closer to the $4 end, but they don’t feature those very prominently.

Flipping through those Country Living magazines made me remember a really good recipe I got out of an earlier issue during another visit, which I was happy to find on their website.   I’m going to blog it in a new post so I can have an electronic record of it.

We also got H1N1 inoculations.  I have a major injection phobia (not blood draws, just stab-n-squirts), so when Cheryl (aka Nanna) suggested that their neighbor, who is a public health nurse, might have some extra doses, I got that familiar pukey and light-headed feeling.  I knew it was important to do; there have been a lot of people sick at work, some of whom keep showing up, realizing they’re still sick, then going home.  I’m not in the super high risk group, but Miles is, and I don’t want to bring anything home to him.

We went over to the neighbors’ house to visit and get stabbed.  They would have come to Nanna and Papa’s, but we decided we didn’t want Miles to associate their house with pain, so we went there instead.  She set up a station in the kitchen and got her equipment all set up.  I asked for a chair to sit in, due to my passy-outy tendencies in those situations, so she got me one.  Sitting down helped, though would it have killed her to find a chair with arms?  I kind of felt like I was going to fall out the side.

Actually, though, she did a great job.  The injection itself barely hurt at all, and once my blood pressure got back up to a normal level, I was fine.  Her husband did say I looked a little peaked when I got back to the living room.

Miles did okay too.  He howled as he got the shot, but he recovered quickly and was ready to get back to the Legos.  He needs another dose in a month, which might be kind of hard to find around here.  Apparently it’s easier to find the shots in the more rural counties, because the counties with larger cities (and notably the huge hospital here in Iowa City) are using up all their doses on health care workers.  We might have to go back next month for another round of down-home country kitchen immunization.  It’s the same place they make sauerkraut.