Banana Cream Pie

A few weeks ago my parents came to help us with some trees that needed to be taken down. I wanted to make something special for them, as a thank you. The hard part about that is that my dad is not supposed to eat sugar. He's not diabetic, but as a precaution he is supposed to limit the amount of sugar he eats. The problem is that he (and the rest of my family) LOVE sugary treats and desserts. It's very hard to find good recipes with low or no sugar. A lot of diabetic friendly recipes have sugar in them, and a lot of the Splenda recipes I've found also include regular sugar (or taste funky if they are all Splenda).  I guess they assume that the person they are made for will limit their intake of such foods. "Limiting" is not a word used to describe my family. A pie will last less than two days!

The day before they were due to arrive, I walked into the kitchen and saw these, and I the idea of what to make popped into my head.

I decided to make banana cream pie, which is easy to turn into a very low sugar dessert, by using sugar-free pudding mix

The Banana Cream Pie I grew up on consisted of a pie shell, pudding, and whipped cream. I wanted to add my own touch to it, so I sauteed the bananas ahead of time and blended them into the milk used to make the pudding. It added a more natural banana flavor to the pudding. I also made my own whipped cream.  You can find the recipe for the all-butter pie crust here.

 

I sauteed the bananas with a little brown sugar (yes, not sugar-free, but so good!) and some butter.

Then I blended the bananas into a little milk, to make banana-milk for the pudding.

 

After you make your pudding with the banana milk, add a little of the whipped cream to make a fluffier filling. (You can also use cool whip to save time! They even sell sugar free cool whip at some grocery stores.)

When you are pre-baking your pie crust, be sure to poke holes in it with a fork so that it won't bubble. You can also cover the bottom with foil and use pie weights or dried beans. Even with the poking, check part way through baking so that you can poke any bubbles that happen to evade your poking.

Fill your pie and top with whipped cream. If you want to be all "fancy" you can pipe it on with a star tip, as I did here.

So, yes, there was some added sugar (from the bananas and the whipped cream). But, that could be easily remedied by using sugar-free cool whip and not using sugar on the bananas. Or, if you don't worry about sugar intake, use regular pudding and go all for it when adding sugar to the bananas and whipped cream. :)

And, yes, it was gone in (less than) two days!!! But, hey, it's almost winter and my hips appreciate the extra warmth.

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