Mile-High Choco-Banana Cream Pie

This pie is rich, delicious and has a great combination of flavors- decadent chocolate cream, caramelized bananas, toasted walnuts all in a cookie crust, YUM! (time doesn't count cooling times)

• Ready In: 35 mins
• Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 3⁄4 cup walnuts, chopped
• 3  bananas, firm but not too green
• 2  tablespoons butter
• 1⁄4 cup brown sugar, packed (I used dark)
• 1  teaspoon cinnamon
• 1⁄4 cup Amaretto (or just a teaspoon or 2 of almond extract if you don't want to use this)
• 16 1⁄2 ounces  refrigerated sugar cookie dough, from a tube
• 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 6  ounces instant chocolate pudding mix, dry (it's really 5.9 oz. the 6 1/2 cup box, but Zaar kept rejecting it)
• 1  cup milk, cold
• 8  ounces Cool Whip Lite (or regular cool whip)
• 1⁄4 cup  semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a dry pan over medium heat, put your chopped walnuts and toast them. Stir them often for about 5 minutes or when they start to get that lovely toasted smell and get lightish brown around the edges. *Be careful not to burn them*.
3. Set your nuts aside to cool in the fridge, and then peel and slice your bananas about 1/4 inch thick.
4. In a medium skillet melt your butter over medium heat.
5. Add your bananas and saute them for a few minutes.
6. Add the brown sugar, cinnamon and amaretto now and gently stir until sugar melts and the sauce thickens a little bit.
7. Turn off the heat and stir in a 1/2 cup of your walnuts into the banana mixture. Set this mixture aside to cool a little.
8. Take your tube of sugar cookie dough and press it into the bottom and up the sides of a 9 inch pie pan. Make sure you press in all over to an even thickness, just right up to the top edge of the pan.
9. Place your pie crust into the pre-heated oven and let it bake about 10 minutes, or until the edges are browned and the middle is a light brown.
10. It will puff up as it bakes, but don't worry it will settle back down into a great pie crust shape after it cools.
11. Let your crust cool completely ( I used the fridge to help it along a bit).
12. In a big mixing bowl beat your 2 packages of softened cream cheese, the dry pudding mix, and the milk together until smooth, with an electric beater on med-high/high.
13. Fold in 1/2 of the container of cool whip into this mixture until well combined.
14. Take your cooled banana mixture and spread out on the bottom of your cooled pie crust.
15. Mound the chocolate cream mixture on top of the bananas in a sort of dome shape.
16. Carefully frost the chocolate mound evenly all over with the other 1/2 of your cool whip.
17. Sprinkle with the reserved 1/4 cup walnuts and the chocolate chips.
18. You can chill your pie a little first or just dig in now, enjoy! (we ate it immediately, couldn't resist, but it's great colder too).