I am not an official Lifestyle Sista but I love their link-up series and have tried to follow along with some of their great blog post ideas. Somehow skipped the last link-up about fitness! But here I am, the biggest duck in the puddle, when it comes to linking up about eating and food…two of my favorite things.
Today the gals are sharing a recipe with five ingredients or less. The recipe I am going to share is called Raspberry Vanilla Jello Salad and I found it on Ziplist. I am embarrassed to admit publicly that my girls grew up Jello deprived. I really never made Jello, I think mainly because my Jello never gelled. It was more like thick Koolaid. Or slime. Or goop.
You may wonder how a real mother can’t make a proper bowl of Jello. It’s easy when you are a real mother who never measures anything for any recipe. Not only do I not measure the amounts of any of the ingredients but I rarely use the same ingredients twice when I make anything. So my chili tastes one way one time, and completely different the next. The good thing about cooking that way is – IF you didn’t like it the first time, you might like it the next time. The bad thing about cooking that way is – IF you did like it the first time, you might not find it edible at all the next time! And then there’s always the third time! Third time’s charm.
So I made Raspberry Vanilla Jello Salad the first time last June when we had our first (EVER) cookout. That is worthy of a blog post all its own. I am very introverted and shy and borderline anti-social and reclusive. Translatation: we don’t entertain…EVER. But I bought my husband a very nice grill for his birthday in February and he took that as a green light to invite all of his baseball team and their families to our house for a cookout early in the season. Not sure why I decided June in the Chihuahuan Desert was a good time to try to make Jello successfully but I did. And I did. It was delicious. And edible with a spoon rather than a straw!
I made Raspberry Vanilla Jello Salad again yesterday for Thanksgiving, kind of in place of the much safer, gelled cranberry sauce in a can. Walkin’ on the wild side over here! I guess because it had been almost six months since I had first made Raspberry Vanilla Jello Salad, it was almost like making it for the first time…because AGAIN it was EDIBLE! Even similar in taste and texture to the batch I whipped up for the BBQ.
My granddaughter Cady, who doesn’t eat anything, actually ate it without gagging so you know it is good. Before posting it here tonight, I traced the recipe back to Nellie at Butter with a Side of Bread. Check out Nellie’s great blog for lots of other tasty recipes.
And here, my friends, is my borrowed, 5 ingredients or less, Lifestyle Sistas link-up series recipe:
Raspberry Vanilla Jello Salad*
1 box (5.1 oz) instant vanilla pudding
32 oz. container vanilla yogurt
8 oz. container Cool Whip (thawed)
1 pkg. frozen raspberries
Combine the pudding mix and the vanilla yogurt, stirring until well mixed.
Fold Cool Whip into the mixture.
Finally, fold in the raspberries. You can set them out for a few minutes before making the salad, but you can put them in frozen and they will thaw very quickly so you can serve the salad right after mixing. If you don’t serve the salad immediately, the raspberries will thaw more and the juices will add a raspberry flavor and a deeper pink color to the mixture.
*I used sugar free pudding, light whipped topping, unsweetened raspberries and low fat yogurt.
It is truly refreshing and delicious. Hope you will give it a try. And check out the recipes of the official sistas – Deena, Carrie, Christy, Lana, and Shaunacey.
P.S. Thank you to Mary and Sharon who explained why I can make this successfully and probably don’t have to wait six months between attempts! This recipe contains NO JELLO! A Jello salad sans Jello! Ha! Thank you, girls!!!
Hugs and sticky (Jello salad) kisses,
Sharon
You and I cook alike 🙂 That looks yummy so I’ll give it a whirl but I have a question. Where is the jello in it?
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Well, that never occurred to me. There is NO Jello in it. Ha! Thank you for pointing that out. Probably why I can make this successfully. NO JELLO. Love you, Sharon.
Mary
Leslie-sounds yummy, but I had to giggle a little…no actual jello in it?
Leslie Roberts Clingan
Well, that never occurred to me, Mary. And now I am giggling!!! There is NO Jello in it. Ha! Thank you for pointing that out. Probably why I can make this successfully. NO JELLO and not a lot of measuring. I can rock this all day long. XO Mary!!
Carrie @ Curly Crafty Mom
Leslie, this looks SO, so good! I think I spend a lot of my time as a mother being frazzled or trying to juggle three things at once, so I won’t judge you that your jello never set for you when you made it for your kids! lol! I really love mixing goodies in jello like you did here. YUM!
Shaunacey
ohhhhhh this sounds AND looks so yummy!!!
I’m an awful jello maker lol – I don’t know what it is… it’s not as easy as they make it sound 🙂