Brought to You from JELL-O Fun and Fabulous Recipes

So, a week or so ago, when I made my yummy lattice chicken casserole, I also made this frozen peanut butter pie. (Yes, the photo has been haunting my personal photo archives since then, along with countless others.) Anyway, I was pretty excited about this recipe, which came from JELL-O Fun and Fabulous Recipes, one of the many volumes in my JELL-O cookbook library. It involved peanut butter, after all, as well as an unexpected and intriguing strip of strawberry jam. And it was easy to prepare (as are all JELL-O recipes), which gave it points with this busy crafter. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

8 oz. container Cool Whip

1 prepared 9-in graham cracker pie crust

1/3 cup strawberry jam (I have only strawberry preserves, so I used those. But they weren't spreading the way they were supposed to . . . so I ended up using an entire jar!)

1 cup cold milk

1/2 cup chunky peanut butter (I used smooth peanut butter, probably more than 1/2 cup)

1 4-serving size package vanilla JELL-O pudding

Directions

Spread 1 cup of the Cool Whip in the bottom of the pie crust; freeze for about 10 minutes. Carefully spoon jam/preserves over Cool Whip. Gradually add milk to peanut butter in bowl, blending until smooth. Add pudding. With electric mixer at low speed, beat until well blended, 1 to 2 minutes. Fold in remaining Cool Whip. Spoon over jam/preserves in pie crust. Freeze until firm. Garnish with additional Cool Whip and chopped nuts, if desired (I did not desire).

So, how was it? The peanut butter section was delicious, especially with the graham cracker crust. As I ate it, I thought, oh, so this is how all those restaurants pull off that creamy peanut butter filling: just mix peanut butter, Cool Whip/cream, pudding, and milk. As for the strawberry part . . . it was a little disturbing and made the whole pie taste like a cold and incredibly sugary peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Of course, this didn't stop me from pulling the pie out of the freezer a second night (although I'm not proud to admit it.) The verdict? I'd like to make this again, substituting chocolate pudding or sauce for the strawberry preserves.

It's sort of my goal to try out all of my JELL-O recipes. Well, all the decent-sounding ones. There are few JELL-O salads involving ham, mayonnaise, and -- brace yourself -- tongue. Needless to say, I won't be making those. But desserts are fair game. So be sure to check back for more experiments!