Parade Magazine's No-Bake Strawberry Cheesecake

This recipe is from the June 14, 2009 Parade Magazine's Simply Delicious "Chill Out With Retro Treats" by Sheila Lukins.

Hopefully I made the per serving numbers less shocking and less retro (450 calories! 26g fat!) by using Neufchatel 1/3 less fat cream cheese, low fat sour cream and fat-free Cool Whip. I also substituted sliced fresh apricots - a good use for that big bubba-sized package from Costco.

Ingredients:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
8 ounces prepared whipped topping, thawed
1 (6 ounce) graham cracker pie crust
1 lb fresh strawberries, hulled, halved lengthwise

Directions:
Beat the cream cheese until smooth with an electric mixer. Gradually beat in the sugar then beat in the sour cream and vanilla until just combined. Fold in the whipped topping. Scrape the mixture into the the pie crust. There may be some filling left over. If so, reserve it to be decoratively piped onto the top of the pie. Chill in the refrigerator for 4 hours.
Starting in the center, arrange the strawberries in a circular pattern. Pipe with any extra filling if you like.

Want to make your own crust? (We almost did until we added the cost of ingredients and discovered the store-brand prepared crust was only $1.09 versus almost $3 for a box of graham crackers. And lower in the fat counts and sugar. And time was running short.)

Here's Parade's instructions for making your own graham cracker crust -- Combine 1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs with 1/4 cup sugar and 1/3 cup melted butter. Press the mixture into a 9" pie plate and bake for 8 minutes in a preheated 350 oven. Cool completely.