I got soul but I'm not a soldier.

Last night marked our inaugural Supper Club. Held at Sarah and Mike's, the chosen theme was "Soul Food." Shall we say... Yum?! As hosts, Sarah and Mike provided the main course, and everyone else was assigned a supporting dish. I landed dessert. Woo! And, just because I wanted to use my food processor, I made a small side dish as well.

I've been thinking about the banana pudding Brad and I had at Slows last month ever since, so I decided to tackle that. I went with the Joy of Cooking recipe, which, while not necessarily soul-ful, is at least old school (and by old school, I mean lots of sugar, butter, and whole milk!). The recipe makes 10 small servings and calls for 2/3 (omg... I've just had an epiphany. Keep reading for details!) cup sugar, 3 tbls. cornstarch, 1/8 tsp. salt, 3 cups whole milk, 3 (or 4!) large egg yolks, 2 (or 3!) tbls. of butter cut into pieces, 1-1/2 tsp. vanilla, 60 to 70 vanilla wafers (I used < 50), and 4 to 5 ripe, firm bananas sliced.

Mini milk!



Get the bananas and wafers ready first.

In a medium saucepan, mix the sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Slowly stir in the milk, then whisk in the eggs; lastly, drop the butter pieces in. Then, stirring constantly, heat the mixture until it comes to a simmer.

Reduce the heat to low and, stirring briskly, bring back up to a simmer and cook for two minutes. Remove from heat and mix in the vanilla. If not using right away, cover the pudding directly with plastic wrap. Since you listened to me and got your 'naners and 'nillas ready already, it's time to get assembling! The JofC recipe says to line the bottom and sides of a 2 quart dish with wafers to start, but I decided to go with a trifle dish instead, also deciding not to line the sides of the dish. I just did wafers, bananas, pudding, wafers, bananas, pudding...

Layer-y.

Then you just cover the pudding directly on top with plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge for at least four hours. Serve with whipped cream.

Next up... time to bring out the big guns!!!

She's so pretty.

I decided to also make some pimento cheese, and in the food processor you see a 4 oz. jar of pimentos, 1 cup mayo, NOT 1 garlic clove, 1 tbsp. lemon juice, 1 tsp. dry mustard, 1/2 tsp. Worcestershire, and 1/4 tsp. ground red pepper.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!

After that's all mixed, add 2 cups grated cheddar and 2 cups grated colby. Give it another QUICK bzzzzzzzz, just until it is the consistency of cottage cheese.

Voila!

All that was left to do was to eat! We packed up the goodies and headed over to join everyone for dinner. And what a feast it was!

Pulled pork, mac and cheese, greens, cornbread...

Can't forget Birgit's amazing sweet tea drink! My new favorite.
Even though everyone went home and immediately had to brush their teeth. :)



We killed it. Time for dessert.......

I'd whipped up some homemade whipped cream to serve the pudding with. I can't express enough what a difference homemade makes -- more than worth the extra 2 minutes of effort (and you save some $$).

Brads like dessert.

Remember that epiphany I had earlier? When writing out the recipe for this, I realized I made a little booboo when making the pudding... The pudding tasted good. Sweet, and not quite how I remembered the Slows pudding, but fine enough. Well, turns out my eyes somehow translated "2/3 cup sugar" as THREE CUPS! THREE CUPS OF SUGAR! It, of course, seemed like a lot when I was making it, but what do I know? It IS the JofC cookbook -- ha! I'm still laughing about this, and I'm very glad I didn't kill anyone. And while it definitely was too sweet, I don't think it ruined it, so good to know you can waaaay over-sugar pudding and still kind of get away with it.

So overall, Supper Club was a grand success, and thanks to Sarah and Mike for being fantastic first hosts. Can't wait to see what the next months bring!