Sunday, August 12, 2007

Mixing business with pleasure


My friend Ron just reminded me of something I wanted to learn about Jello. On the package directions, it says to add fruit or vegetables. Of course, my eyeballs bulged like a kumquat when I read the word, vegetables. Being a Jello rookie, I have only had the fruit induced Jello.

What kind of vegetables do you add to Jello? I started thinking about radishes and cherry gelatin, Green onions, green beans and lima beans to lemon jigglers. Boy, I bet the kids would gobble those up! Beets, asparagus, zucchini and those weird, twisted brown root things that I swear, look at me as I pass them in the grocery; the possibilities are infinite.

Ron said he and his wife, Marilyn, enjoyed Jello with shredded carrots and pineapple. Shredded carrots are dainty and inoffensive. You can use them to sneak vitamins into the most surprising places. They're like drug mules of the vitamin world; carrying their healthiness into unsuspecting territory.

Actually, shredded carrots might be a possible exception, if one was physically forced to eat Veg-O. Of course, shredded carrots also show up in carrot cake. I'm not a huge fan of carrot cake, seeing that it doesn't contain chocolate. But, I have a hard time eating it anyway due to the combing of the two social classes: vegetable and delectable sweets.

I fully uphold the natural laws of segregation when it comes to combining healthy foods with the sign-me-up-for-a-heart-attack dessert family. One is business. The other pleasure and never the two should meet.

However, recent research has yielded some interesting results: Espresso Jello, Cherry Coke Jello, green salad with cottage cheese, Jello pizza and apricot and zucchini jelly (which my mom loves but she buys it from some fancy place with a brilliant marketing department). Very few vegetable recipes, but I did find Ron's carrot and pineapple Jello salad. So it does exist, with rave reviews from Ron,although he's a Notre Dame fan so his credibility is suspect. Do some research and discover for yourself this untapped resource known as Jello.

Bon Apetite.

2 comments:

Merri said...

Yep, I confess, I have had lime jello with shredded carrots. Several times. I am surprised that you haven't being that I suspect you have been to a few potluck suppers yourself. This was actually one of my grandmother's specialties. As for other vegetables in jello, I have never seen it, and I am afraid if I did I would have to pass on it.

Martinsburg Church of Bruin said...

Not a jello-related comment. At all.

BUT, I ran across this (http://tinyurl.com/2jflbz) and thought you would get a kick out of it. In fact, if it hadn't been for the "wrong" number of children, I would have thought it was you writing.

Enjoy!