Thinking with our stomachs…

We love beautiful autumn days: jewel-blue skies and red and yellow fall leaves with the sun beating down. We couldn’t resist the wonderful weather, so we made an excursion to U-Village today.

On the trip down to U-Village, we stopped by QFC to restock our fridge. Besides our absolute food necessities (Shu’s yogurt, which was on sale! and fresh fruit) we picked up some ingredients for an easy and delicious banana cream pie (a much better alternative than the plasticky pies sold in the dorms)!

Banana Cream Pie

Preparation Time: 20 minutes Ready In: 3 hours and 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 (9-inch) ready-made graham crust
• 4 bananas
• 2 cups cold milk
• 1 (5.1 oz) package instant vanilla pudding mix
• 8 oz. frozen cooled whipped topping, thawed

Directions:

1. Slice bananas. Layer half of sliced bananas on the bottom of the pie crust.
2. Combine instant vanilla pudding mix with milk. Mix until thoroughly combined. Mix in half of the whipped topping.
3. Pour pudding mixture into pie crust. Layer the rest of the sliced bananas on top.
4. Spread the rest of the whipped topping on top of the pie.
5. Chill for at least 3 hours before serving.

We ran into some basic problems… and came up with several ingenious solutions! Not many of us living in the dorms own a mixing bowl, much less a mixer! So for the mixing bowl, we used a large round tupperware container. A spoon and some arm power more than made up the lack of a electric mixer! Oh, and for a measuring cup, we used a Nalgene water bottle, which had fluid ounce measurements on the side!

This has got to be the easiest pie for the best taste! Our friends thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the pie through a Huskies football game and several rounds of Super Smash Melee! (A note: college students are VERY appreciative to any offerings of food!)

Well it’s definitely back to homework and school and reality now- but hopefully we’ll be back to baking soon!

-Lydia