Strawberry Banana Dessert

I recently made this dessert for a family get-together. My family always requests my chocolate desserts and they disappear quickly along with smiles and comments of "my favorite dessert!". But, great as chocolate is, I really wanted a   change of pace so decided on this strawberry banana dessert - I mean really, who doesn't like strawberries and bananas?? Well, this was a definite hit! One brother even commented that he now has a new "favorite"! I don't have an actual "recipe" so I've tried to list the ingredients I used as accurately as I remember. If you have any questions on the dessert please do not hesitate to e-mail me or put your questions in the comments and I will get right back to you. I really hope that you enjoy this dessert as much as my family did! (My picture doesn't do justice to the dessert so please don't judge it based on that - give it a try anyway)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups crushed vanilla sandwich cookies
• 1/3 cup butter, melted
• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups fresh strawberries, chopped
• 2 or 3 bananas, sliced
• 3 cups whipped topping, divided
• 2 (3.4 ounce) packages vanilla instant pudding
• 3 1/2 cups cold milk

Directions:

Crush vanilla sandwich cookies. (I like to do them in my food processor, but you can also use a zip lock bag to crush them in) Add melted butter and mix well. Reserve about 2 tablespoons of crumb mixture for top of dessert. Press remaining crumb mixture onto the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Refrigerate while preparing filling.

Mix cream cheese and sugar in medium bowl until blended. Add strawberries and mix well. You can add more or less strawberries as desired. (More is always better - right?) You can probably use frozen strawberries if you don't have fresh, just drain them so they don't make your cream cheese layer to thin. Gently stir in 2 cups of whipped topping and then spread over crust.

Whisk pudding mix and milk about 2 minutes and sit aside. Slice bananas and layer them over the cream cheese strawberry mixture. I used 3 small bananas to make a nice layer - use more or less as desired. Pour prepared pudding over the banana layer and refrigerate 5 minutes to make sure pudding is set. Then spread remaining whipped topping over pudding and sprinkle reserved crumb mixture over the top. Refrigerate about 4 hours before serving

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Enjoy!