Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Rainbow Jello


St. Patrick's Day is this week, and I've been trying to work up a green menu plan for my family. I have a hard time adding green food coloring to all the food. It seriously grosses me out. I know much of the food I buy at the store is full of food coloring, but somehow it's different than green scrambled eggs or green milk. Corned beef and cabbage would never fly at my house, so I've been trying to come up with some ideas of more naturally green food.

This year, we're going to go easy on breakfast with some Lucky Charms. My kids have never had them, so I think they'll be a hit. I'm still working on some fun ideas for lunch. I'd love to hear any ideas you've got to share.

For dinner, I've got some spinach pasta from the grocery store, which is already green! I'm going to make some fresh pesto sauce to go on top. Get out your green table cloth, and serve it up with a green vegetable and some of this rainbow jello and voila! You're family will be so impressed. You could even serve some of this low calorie key lime pie for dessert.

This jello will take a while to make, but most of it is down time while you wait for the next layer to set up in the fridge. It's a piece of cake if you are working on other projects around the house. Just take a break from folding laundry and add your next layer before moving your load of whites over to the dryer. I'm going to make mine the day before St. Patrick's day so it's ready to go and I don't have to worry about it the day of.

Now, this is important. Unless you fridge is more level than mine, it won't look very cool if your layers aren't level. I usually have to fold up a piece of paper and shove it under one side to compensate.

Check out more St. Patrick's ideas at the below, and remember to share your green ideas with me in the comments!

Other St. Patrick's Day Ideas:

Veggies: broccoli, green beans, spinach, cucumbers, green salad

Fruit: green grapes, honey dew melon, kiwi, green apples dipped in a pot of gold (peanut butter or caramel)

Treats: goldfish crackers, gold mini Reeses peanut butter cups, Skittles, M&M cookies with green M&Ms or Andes mints

Lunch: green juice boxes, green jello cups, pickles, green fruit leather

Recipes:
Broccoli and Bowtie Pasta
Green Zucchini Soup with peasant bread
Key Lime Pie
Green smoothies via my sister-in-law Jen
Other St. Patrick's ideas from Jen

My St. Patrick's Day Pinterest Board

Rainbow Jello

Use a 9 x 13 dish.

You will need small boxes of jello (in this order):
lime
lemon
orange
strawberry
cherry
black cherry (purple)
1 1/2 lb. sour cream

Combine one box of jello with 1 1/4 cups boiling water. Divide this mixture in half.

First half, add 1/3 c. sour cream and stir until smooth. Use wire whisk to add sour cream. Mix it gently, being careful no to make it too foamy. Pour your sour cream jello layer into your glass dish and pop any bubbles before putting it into the fridge. Refrigerate 1/2 hour.

For the second half of the jello, add 3 Tbl. of cold water. Carefully spoon onto first layer. Chill 1/2 hour. You will end up repeating this process twelve times--two layers each of six colors of jello. Be careful as you pour on each layer. Remember to check that the dish is level before leaving it to set up.

Top with cool whip and serve to all those little leprechauns at your house!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a great recipe! Thanks! I can't say that mine was perfect. True about the kids seeing this as a "cool" recipe! Thanks for it! (Once again a winner!)


Angie (welovetoshmush blog)

*Actually I changed my blog address awhile ago for privacy reasons too (I read your profile stmt of which I'm with you on those thoughts--of which you are welcome to ck out ours by sending an email to
welovetoshmush@yahoo.com- I don't want to post the new blog spot in a public domain) :)
Happy Day to you!

Whitney said...

Thanks Angie. I recently made this again when I didn't have the time to do it right and it didn't look as good. Of course, the kids didn't care.

Satisfying my Sweet Tooth said...

That is beautiful, Whitney! I want to try that one too. You have so many good recipes!

Myra said...

I have to bring green treats to a school activity, so I thought I'd make green snickerdoodles, because I'm lazy and that seemed easy. We did rainbow pancakes (a stack each mini pancake was a different color of the rainbow) to teach my youngest her colors. That was fun. Rainbow shaped pizza would be fun...and each color can be a different topping (pepperoni, chedder cheese, pineapple, green peppers, --I don't know for blue--, and a red onion - for purple).

Jen said...

Awesome recipe, Whitney! I like using berry blue at the bottom and no black cherry at the top :)

If you like green peppers, you can slice them the way that makes shamrock shapes and dip them in ranch dressing... not that I like either of those, but some people do ;) You can also serve them on an English muffin with melted cheese. I'm making rainbow fruit kebabs this year for dinner, but you could definitely eat them at lunchtime: kiwi, pineapple, cantaloupe (or orange), strawberry & purple grape.

Twice-baked potatoes are a favorite at our house. I add pureed cauliflower & zucchini to the potatoes to give an extra boost of nutrition. They aren't green, but potatoes can be considered Irish, right?

One more idea: St. Patrick's Day (month) has been my excuse for getting the kids to try green smoothies (veggies for the green color). Our first was last night and was a big hit. Good luck! I'd love to hear what you end up making!