Tag Archives: holiday

Berries in a Cloud Jello Dessert

This is one of the least photogenic desserts I have encountered. It’s also extremely delicious. My sister Erica served it for Thanksgiving this year, and I could hardly keep my fingers out of it.

My hand was smacked many times.

But nothing could stop me! My days of feeling hoity-toity about Jello dessert are over, man.

Here are the traces of this supremely elite dessert on  my emptied Thanksgiving plate.

Hint: it’s the red splotchy stuff at approximately 11 o’clock, wedged between the gravy (brownish stuff) and the mashed sweet potatoes (orangeish stuff).

It’s so complicated to make that Erica had to go to culinary school just to learn the building blocks. It involves things like mixing Jello powder into water. Mixing Jello liquid into Cool Whip. Pouring a bag of frozen fruit into  the Jello. These are all very delicate operations that you need specialized utensils for, such as a spoon. And a bowl or two. Have I scared you off yet?

Since I don’t have step by step photos, I have instead chosen to insert some choice shots of the three of us sisters devouring this dessert like hyenas. We descended on it with spoons, with passion, and with raging appetites. Viewer discretion is cautioned. Or viewer caution is discretioned. Cautionary discretion is viewed. Whatever.

As usual, the printable Word document link is at the bottom. Enjoy, all ye peoples!

Ingredients

(Serves 8)

2 packages black raspberry Jello

2 packages strawberry Jello (or other berry Jello)

1-8 oz container Cool Whip

1 bag frozen mixed berries

Prepare the strawberry Jello following the package instructions. Once the liquid is cool, reserve 2-3 TBS of the liquid.

Mix the frozen berries into the strawberry Jello, and pour the mixture into a Jello mould or Bundt pan.

Chill the strawberry Jello in the refrigerator for about 45 minutes to an hour.

I love how my husband is donning an apron in the background. He’s getting ready to clean up our Jello mess, a mess so huge that it will require All Hands on Deck.

Stir the 2-3 reserved TBS of Jello liquid into 1 container of Cool Whip and chill. It will become pink and delicious.

Prepare the black raspberry Jello according to the package instructions. Erica uses ice cold water to temper it. Pour it into the mould or Bundt pan on top of the chilled strawberry Jello and chill the whole shebang for several hours or overnight.

When ready to serve, fill your sink with some hot water and put the bottom of the Bundt pan in the water for a couple seconds (literally 2 seconds, without submerging). Turn it upside down on a platter, and the Jello should come out easily. Top with pink Cool Whip delight.

Soon, your lovely platter will look something like this:

It’s inevitable, so just accept it.

Click here for printable version: Berries in a Cloud Jello Dessert

All I want for Christmas . . .

No, it’s not “you” or “my two front teeth,” though if you promise to scrub and wax my kitchen floor until it’s shining I may reconsider. It’s this lens. This triumph of photographic technology.

The 50mm f/1.8 lens. Yes, I’d like the 1.4 lens, but since it’s about 4 gazillion times as expensive, I’ll make do with this lovely object. I was about to commend my own frugality, but then I remembered that I already have two lenses . . . and so even purchasing a third lens might not put me in the category of a Scrimpin’ Sally.

So why do I want this lens? Well, its aperture potential is much wider than my current lenses, and a lens with a wider opening means more light comes in, which means I can capture better pictures in low-light situations and get better bokeh . . . and I’ve heard it’s great for portraits and food photography, which are my favorite things to do.

Pleeeeeeeeeaaaaassseeeeeeeee????? Saaaaantaaaa? Let me tell you how good I’ve been this year:

-I didn’t hit Scrimpin’ Sally

-I didn’t make fun of Picky Polly

-I may have taken out the trash once . . . oh wait, that was last year

Arncha proud of me??

(I know neither a Sally nor a Polly, but I’m banking on the fact that Santa has poor eyesight, a bad memory, is generally behind the times, and enjoys it when I use words like “arncha” since it makes me sound like an annoying little girl from a ’50s sitcom, when Santa was in his prime)

That Santa–it’s like he’s not even grounded in reality anymore.

Of course, some more Burts Bees products, bottles of Lestoil, tubs of Noxzema, or buckets of Vick’s VapoRub could all help me with my sniffing problems. Help feed them, I mean. Have you ever stuck your nose in a tub of Vick’s? Oh, how I pity those of you who haven’t. I bet Santa is a huuuuge Vicks addict, what with living in the North Pole and all. He probably has a constant runny nose and rubs Vicks all over his hairy, wrinkled chest every night.

Ew. Let’s keep Santa fully clothed for the remainder of this post.

And now that I’m thinking about presents, a couple more Jeffery Farnol novels couldn’t hurt, just so I don’t wear the cover off of Winds of Chance. Nope, they couldn’t hurt one bit.

Until we move to a different apartment and that last box of Farnol novels going up the steps herniates something or someone.

I’m also very bad to my skin and regularly fail to use make-up remover before going to bed . . . or moisturizer for that matter . . . so I could use some Clinique “Take the Day Off” remover and some of that yellow moisturizer my sister Erica swears by (and I steal every time we’re together) . . .

Oh yeah, there’s always the fabled microplane zester that everyone has been extoling on their blogs for about 10 years. I’m so behind the times, man . . .

. . . or a bunch of great clothes that make me look a) more curvaceous on top, b) less curvaceous on the bottom, and c) make my eyes look bigger and my skin look smoother. In general, I’m going for a combination of Kate Moss and Marilyn Monroe. Both skinny, and also curvaceous; there’s got to be a way to have it all. Santa? Hello? Santa?

Hmmm, we seem to have lost the big red-suited fat man. Maybe he doesn’t know who Kate Moss is–too modern. He’s stuck in the past, the old geezer.

What’s on your Christmas list this year?