Two for Tuesday: Caramel Banana Cream Pie

It's Two for Tuesday! I almost forgot!

This week's recipe is:

Caramel Banana Cream Pie

Ingredients:

• graham cracker crust
• 1 box instant vanilla pudding
• 3-4 bananas
• 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 3/4 cup milk
• whipped cream for topping

Directions:

1. Caramelize the sweetened condensed milk. You can do this in several ways. The easiest, and quickest, is to simply open up the can of milk, pour it into a sauce pan, and heat it over low heat while stirring constantly to keep it from sticking and scorching. Heat and stir until it just begins to caramelize. The longer you heat it and stir it, the harder and chewier it will become once it cools. (An alternate method is to put it in a crock pot full of water and heat on low for 10-12 hours. But then you don't know what you are getting till you open the can.)
2. Remove the caramel from the heat. Allow it to cool off some. (You don't want it to be so hot that it cooks the bananas in the pie. Gross.)
3. Meanwhile, slice about two of the bananas to cover the bottom and sides of the graham cracker crust.
4. Spread the cooled, but still slightly warm caramel over the banana slices.
5. In a mixing bowl, mix pudding mix with 1 and 3/4 cup milk. Whisk or beat on high for two minutes. (Yes, I just did use the word mix or mixing three times in one sentence.)
6. Add another layer of bananas on top of the caramel in the pie pan. Spread the pudding over top of all.
7. Refrigerate for 2 hours until set. (For real, let it set. Show some self restraint.)
8. Top with whipped cream to serve.

You could, if you were feeling adventures, try reversing the order of the pudding and caramel layers, so that the caramel layer was the top layer of the pie. I can't promise that the caramel will spread easily over top a layer of bananas floating on pudding, but you could try it. The benefits would be that you could then drizzle chocolate over the caramel top layer. mmmmm....drizzled chocolate....

AND, because I still feel strange calling this "Two for Tuesday," but only sharing ONE recipe, here's a recipe that I found on another blog. I'm hoping to try it out, as soon as the temperature falls back down below stupid hot. Yes, stupid hot is a perfectly valid weather index, thanks for caring.

I love brownies, and I've been looking for a healthier, more substantial version of a brownie recipe for a while. The cheap brownie mixes just don't cut it anymore. They are just mushy, sugary, and don't really satisfy me at all any more.

Here's a recipe that uses a cheap easy brownie mix, but packs in black beans for protein and substance and some shredded zucchini besides. I will, of course, be stirring in some extra chocolate chips as well.