Mana's Homemade Vanilla Pudding (with pie variations)

Mana used this for her famous and delicious banana pudding (double the recipe because this won't last long!). For banana pudding, line a deep dish with vanilla wafers then a layer of sliced bananas. After the pudding has cooled about 20 min, pour 1/2 on top of layers. Add another layer of cookies and bananas (don't forget sides!) and finish with the rest of pudding. Mana liked the vanilla wafers to get soft so she just covered with wax paper and let it sit on the counter instead of refrigerating...until it was served - it didn't last long anyway! You can also use this as a base for banana cream pie or coconut cream pie. Use about 2 more T. flour to thicken it up for pie and add sliced bananas into cooled vanilla pie filling or if making coconut cream pie, add  2 c. grated coconut; top with merangue, lightly sprinkle with coconut and brown merangue in oven. Refrigerate after cooling. Pies can be topped with meringue and then refrigerated. Each recipe makes one pie.

Mix together in a medium size pan on stove:

3/4 c. sugar
6 T. flour
dash salt

Gradually stir in the 2 1/2 c. milk

When it just starts to very lightly boil and thicken you put spoonfuls, one at a time into 2 egg yolks that have been beaten lightly (Mana did this in a 1 cup measuring cup) stirring constantly to keep the eggs from cooking too fast. After you have added about 3-4 spoonfuls of pudding and stirred into the eggs, dump in the egg/pudding mixture and turn off the heat (Don't just put the egg straight into the pan without mixing first or the egg will cook immediately and you'll have lumpy pudding.)

Add 2 T. real butter and 1-2 t. vanilla and stir in.