A yummy dessert

We had the elders over tonight for dinner. Paul wanted steak and potatoes and since grilling steak is Paul's domain, I thought I'd make a nice dessert. This recipe came from my Kraft Food and Family magazine. It's the dessert featured on the front cover. Click here for the online recipe and picture.

Layered Strawberry Cheesecake Bowl

3 cups sliced fresh strawberries
3 tbsp. sugar
2 - 8oz. pkgs Philadelphia Neufchatel Cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups cold mile
1 - 3.4oz Jello Vanilla Instant Pudding
2 cups thawed cool whip lite whipped topping divided (I just whipped up a pint of heavy whipping cream with a little sugar and vanilla to taste because I have a strong dislike for cool whip)
2 cups frozen pound cake cubes
1 square Baker's semi-sweet chocolate (I just melted a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips cause that's what I had on hand.)

Combine berries and sugar. Refrigerate until ready to use. Beat Neufchatel cheese with mixer until creamy. Gradually beat in milk. Add pudding mix; mix well. Blend in 1 1/2 cups cool whip (real whip cream). Spoon half of the mixture into 2 1/2 quart bowl. Top with cake, berries and remaining Neufchatel cheese mixture. Refrigerate 4 hours. Melt chocolate; drizzle over dessert. Top with remaining cool whip.

(My trifle bowl is wrapped up in a box somewhere in storage so I just used a 9x13 casserole dish and only did one layer of each. I put the cheese/pudding mix on the bottom, cubed pound cake on top of that, then the sliced strawberries, and then drizzled the melted chocolate on top. I kept the whipped cream separate so everyone could put on as much or as little as they wanted.)

This turned out much better than I thought it would. When I beat up the cheese/pudding mixture, it was a little lumpy. But after sitting in the fridge for 4 hours and combined with all the rest of the ingredients, it was really good! Poor Paul, he was complaining that I only make good food when we have guests over. (Um, hello...anyone recall those 21 key limes that I juiced???? No guests were present then or I'd have made them work for their food!!)