Amish Peanut Butter Pie

Recipes are recipes. If I give an Amish cook a recipe of mine and she prepares it and shares it with someone else, does it become an "Amish recipe'? Amish cooks, like the rest of us, collect and share recipes, shop at supermarkets, and welcome shortcuts. Someone questioned whether an Amish cook would use Cool Whip. That question had me laughing. Why in the world wouldn't they!? Most have refrigerators (propane powered) and use convenience ingredients like the rest of us.

I've seen chocolate pudding used in this pie too but I'm sticking to vanilla! It's very simple:

Bake a pie shell. In a small bowl, mix 1 c. peanut butter with 3/4 c powdered sugar. You may find iit easier to squish them together with your fingers.It will be thick and crumbly. Reserve 1/4 c. Crumble the rest into the pie crust. Prepare a small box of instant vanilla pudding, using about 1/4 cup less milk than called for. Pour it over the peanut butter mixture. Top with cool whip or whipped cream, and the reserved peanut butter crumbles, chill.

This recipe came to me years ago from Miriam Wynn, who got it from a local Mennonite 'pie lady' and I've seen it in Marcia Adams' Heartland Cooking book, identical except that the pudding is homemade.