The moral of this story? Be prepared! I now keep frozen cookie crumbles, chopped pecans, a can of sliced peaches in light syrup and a couple boxes of vanilla instant pudding on hand, at all times. Now I can approach this last-minute cooking emergency with no real stress.

If I really want to impress folks, I will skip the individual parfaits and assemble this dish in a trifle bowl. It looks like I slaved over it all day!

It may not be considered gourmet food, nor is it all that interesting-looking. But we all need dishes like this in our arsenal of recipes. Because sometimes accomplishing a task in the allotted time is all that matters.

 

INGREDIENTS

16 CHIPS AHOY! Cookies, divided

½ cup coarsely chopped pecans

2 Tbsp. butter, melted

½ tsp. ground cinnamon

2 pkg. (4-serving size each) vanilla instant pudding

1 qt. (4 cups) cold milk

3 peaches, divided

½ cup thawed frozen whipped topping

 

DIRECTIONS

HEAT oven to 350°F.

CHOP12 cookies; place in medium bowl. Add nuts, butter and cinnamon; mix well. Spread onto rimmed baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray. Bake 5 to 7 min. or until lightly toasted. Cool completely.

BEATpudding mixes and milk with whisk 2 min. Cut 1 peach in half. Wrap 1 peach half with plastic wrap; reserve for later use. Chop remaining peach half and whole peaches.

LAYERhalf EACH of the pudding, cookie mixture and chopped peaches evenly in 8 (8-oz.) parfait glasses or dessert cups; repeat layers. Top with whipped topping.

CUTremaining cookies in half with serrated knife. Cut reserved peach half into 8 slices. Garnish parfaits with cookie halves and peach slices.

 

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Quick Tip:  If you don’t have any fresh peaches, you can use canned peaches, preferably in light syrup. You can use some or all of that syrup to replace the milk used in making the instant pudding.

Recipe and photo courtesy of snackworks.com