Seeing Green

Yesterday, we celebrated St. Patrick's Day. Even though we are not of Irish ancestry, we love to celebrate the holiday. Traditionally, I bake green velvet cake. However, this year, I decided to try something different. I did miss having green baked goods. I decided to begin the celebrating early, and made fluffy green pancakes. They look like something the Hulk would create, but they are delicious. I always use the recipe from the trusty Betty Crocker Cookbook. It was a fun way to start the day and it put a smile on my face.

In the afternoon, I made Irish soda bread, whilst watching the show Moone Boy on hulu.com. Growing up, my mother never made soda bread. The first time I ever had soda bread was when I was in college. I was at a cast party hosted my the director who also happened to be my adviser. She cooked a delicious dinner for the cast that included scrumptious soup and soda bread. I was hooked from that point. Every time I bake soda bread, I think of that night, it was a great time.

I use Craisins in my soda bread rather than currants or raisins. I also soak my Craisins in Red Rose tea for at least 30 minutes before draining them and adding them to the dough. I found the recipe way back in 2002 on epicurious.com. However, the internet is full of thousands of recipes for soda bread, I'm sure you can find one easily.

I ran out of time to make a dessert, so I waited until today. I wanted to make a dessert using only ingredients that I had already on hand. This morning, I decided to have fun and make up my own recipe. I call my creation- "Last Minute Key Lime Pie."

Last Minute Key Lime Pie

Ingredients:
1 (2.75 oz.) pkg. lime gelatin mix
1 (3 oz.) pkg. vanilla pudding mix
1 1/2 c. water
1 can sweetened condensed milk
4 oz. cream cheese (softened)
2 tbsp. lime juice
1/2 c. whipped topping
graham crack crust

Directions:
1) Prepare a graham cracker crust for a 10 in. deep dish pan according to directions on the back of the graham cracker box.
2) While the crust is in the oven, blend the gelatin mix and the pudding mix in a medium saucepan. On medium heat, add 1/2 cup of water and mix until the mixture is fully combined, then add the remaining water.
3) Remove crust from oven, and set aside to cool.
4) Continue to stir the gelatin and pudding mixture and bring to a full boil. Once it comes to a boil, let it cook for one minute and continue to stir, then remove from heat.
5) In a large mixing bowl, add the sweetened condensed milk and beat with an electric hand beater for 2 minutes. Add the lime juice and beat another minute.
6) Add the cream cheese to the milk mixture and beat on low speed until smooth. Then, switch the beater to high speed and beat for three minutes.
7) Slowly add the lime gelatin/pudding mixture to the milk mixture a little bit at a time. You don't want to pour it all in at once, because it will still be quite warm and it will make your mixture freak out on you. Beat on the lowest setting, with each addition until blended.
8) Once the all of the gelatin mixture is added, gently fold in the whipped topping and fold until smooth.
9) Pour mixture into graham cracker crust and chill until set.

Now, I know that technically this isn't Key Lime pie, as it doesn't use key lime. It is a sort of mock key lime pie. This took, roughly 30 minutes to through together. If you need to make a dessert quickly, this is great. This is also great to make if you are feeling a bit lazy and don't want to jump through a lot of hoops to get a tasty dessert. Sometimes, you just want a great dessert and you don't feel like you need to impress anyone. To be honest, I'm a bit impressed with myself. I don't often create my own recipes. I think my sister will dig this, because her little boy absolutely LOVES Key Lime Pie and this takes little effort and is practically fool proof. The trickiest part for me was folding in the whipped topping. Full disclosure: I didn't use vanilla pudding, I actually used vanilla tapioca pudding. This happened because I saw what looked like a box of vanilla pudding and I didn't see the word "Tapioca" that was in small lettering. I was initially a bit vexed, but I quickly got over it, and it turned out perfectly fine. These things happen and you just have to roll with it.

So, there you have it. A wonderful emerald green day was had. Tonight I will eat the delicious pie for dessert after I eat hash that will be made with the left overs from last night's boil dinner. I intend to be more creative this week and I can't wait to share it all with you. Until next time~ Toodahloo!