Bananarama Week -- Banana Cream Cheese Pie

Oh what do you do with 16 lbs of bananas? Bananas went on sale for one day at a local grocery store for 29 cents a pound. I may have gone over the top but I easily buy this much apples and peaches for food storage later on in the summer and they cost way more than 29 cents a pound. I realize most of us don't grow bananas and so you may be wondering why bananas deserve a whole week on this food storage blog. Well, I believe an important part of food storage is cooking and preserving seasonal produce. Saturday I baked and baked and I still have 2 dozen bananas left. I thought I was going to be giving you the directions for banana chips. They did not turn out as well as I hoped. I have some more experimenting to do but I did try this banana cream cheese pie that got mixed results in my house. Three of us loved it, two of us did not. Keep in mind that one of those naysayers was my daughter who hates all cooked fruit. I loved the fresh taste of this pie and so the first banana recipe of the week is this delicious pie I found in my new pie cookbook Tarts With Tops On by Tamasin Day-Lewis. I am pretty much reading this book like it is a novel. I am such a pie girl.

I did make one alteration to the recipe in that I left out the walnuts. They would be great but I have too many people that don't like nuts in their baked items residing in this house. The pie was fine without them

The crust is a little different in that it uses a puff pastry. I used the boxed stuff from the freezer section but I fully intend to make my own puff pastry later this week and I will share that recipe with you. Pie season is upon us very soon and I will be making a bulk batch of pie crusts to put in my freezer. So much better than the store bought freezer crusts.

1 Box or two large sheets of puff pastry

1 Cup cream cheese ( you can also use mascarpone)

5 Tbsp light brown sugar

1 egg beaten

4 bananas

zest of 1 lemon

1-3 Tbs lemon juice

2 Tb milk

1 sugar

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and take out puff pastry to defrost if using frozen. Line a greased tart pan with half of puff pastry and prick all over with a fork. Cream the sugar and cream cheese in a large bowl and then add egg and mix well. Add sliced bananas, lemon zest and juice to cream cheese mixture and stir until well combined.

Spoon the mixture into the tart shell and smooth out to create an even surface. Cover with the remaining puff pastry and crimp edges together with a fork. Brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown and puffed up. This pie is delicious both warm and cold. I prefer warm because I love cooked bananas.