The Random Thoughts Review

As I’ve been losing weight the past few months, I’ve developed versions of a couple of common desserts that I can eat totally guilt free. I have a version of jello, and a version of pudding that I have been making on a very regular basis.

Jello:

Ingredients:

• 2 boxes of sugar free Gelatin. I use the Walmart brand. They have about 10 different flavors. I have had good luck with all of the flavors but lime for the following recipe.
• 1 can of ‘No sugar added’ pears or peaches. I prefer the pears. The pears don’t retain much of the pear flavor and just retain texture more than anything. Peaches retain more of their peach flavor, which may or may not interfere with the flavors of the jello. I will say that if you use peach jello and peaches along with the orange juice you get a flavor that tastes exactly like peach cobbler. Supposedly if you use citrus fruits the gelatin won’t set up. I’ve used a can of mixed fruit and the pineapple didn’t seem to cause problems.
• 2 cups of Orange Juice. I use the Walmart brand that is calcium fortified (in the blue carton). Just make sure you don’t get Orange juice that has sugar added.

1. Boil 2 cups of water.
2. While heating the water, drain the water off of the can of fruit into a measuring cup. The pears that I use come as pear halves, so I take a knife and cut around on them to get them into smaller chunks.
3. Once the water is boiling, pour into into the dish where you’ve put the 2 packets of jello powder. Stir it for a couple of minutes.
4. Add the can of drained fruit. Make sure that the fruit chunks are of a smallish size.
5. Add orange juice to the water that you previously drained off the fruit so that you have 2 cups total.
6. Mix the orange juice in with the warm jello water.
7. Refrigerate. And enjoy.

Total damage: For a little more than 5 cups of dessert, there are fewer than 350 calories, and in the process you take in a lot of orange juice and fruit. Good stuff. Cost is probably a bit under 2 bucks for all of it.

Pros: nice and fruity.
Cons: Takes a while from thinking about it to actually eating since the jello has to set up.

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Pudding:

Not much to describe here. I just get the fat free sugar free pudding mix from Walmart (Sam’s choice brand). I’m partial to the chocolate, but others will work as well. 2 cups of skim milk to go along with it, and just mix it up. One of the drink mixer containers works well for this. You can throw the ingredients in the jar/glass, put the lid on it, shake it up good, and it’s taken care of. I like to then slice a banana up and put into the mix. A couple of more shakes, and it is ready for the fridge. Five minutes later and the pudding has set up, and it is ready to eat.

Total damage: About 420 calories for the 2.5 cups or so. It has a fair amount of calcium, and the banana provides the normal fruit benefit. Cost is probably $1.50 or so.

Pros: Chocolate. Quick.
Cons: More calories per cup than the jello. The bananas will turn brown in the mix if you leave it overnight.

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So, there you have it. A couple of quick recipes that can satisfy that dessert craving, and I consider them virtually guilt free. You’d have to eat so much of them that you’d be sick before they really started hurting your diet.