The problem began when I only bought one package of jello, which ended up making only 4 fish bowls. Too lazy to go back out to the store, I thought I'd improvise (the demise of so many of my cooking adventures, yet I never learn) and make my own jello using blue gatorade and gelatin. Well, gatorade doesn't quite have enough flavor to carry itself in jello form, it turns out, but I forged on anyway. And then just to make it look as bad as it tasted, I decided to be clever and add sprinkles to it, you know, to make a little layer of aquarium gravel. Except that sprinkles float. And dissolve. So all it did was make really cloudy, water flavored jello with mystery things floating in it. The swedish fish were cute, though. *
Never one to learn from past mistakes, I decided once again to dabble in the medium of jello. This time I wanted to make rainbow layered jello. I think that would have been OK but, as always, I had to take it up a notch. Our friend Karen makes a great layered jello salad at Christmas. It has these delicious white "inter-layers" that are firm, yet creamy. Kind of cheesecake textured. I remembered that she said these layers were sour cream based, so I went on line and found what I believed to be the recipe. I started my jello a day ahead of time to give the layers plenty of time to set (rushing and cutting corners time-wise is another of my oft repeated cooking mishaps). The purple layer came out great, but the white cream layer wasn't quite right. It contained gelatin, so it took on a jello-like texture. I managed to get it onto the purple layer more or less OK, and then set to work on the blue layer. By the time the blue layer had hardened, the white cream stuff was also hard. I figured I'd just beat it with my mixer (this seems to work with cream cheese frosting, so why not here?) Well, it didn't. At this point anyone with any sense would have simply aborted the mission but oh no, not this chick. I proceeded with the next two layers and just globbed that white mess on in between. Somewhere around the yellow layer I decided that this just wasn't working, and finished off the orange and red minus the white. The problem with this was the last layers were too clear, and you could see the globules lurking beneath the surface. See:
Again, normal people would have thrown in the towel and said "who really likes jello, anyway?" Or they would have just started over again, maybe minus the white layers (or would have called Karen for the recipe, which is what I should have done in the first place) But I was afraid I didn't have enough time left, and damn it, I paid all of 99 cents per box of jello**. I just threw some whipped cream on top to cover it up and, well, I think the picture really speaks for itself:
Yeah. You know you want it. By now so much time and effort had gone into it I had to put it out, even if no one in their right mind would find it the least bit appetizing. I explained to those who politely inquired that the white stuff was not curdled cream, as it may appear, and even convinced a couple people to have some (and they said it tasted pretty good, as long as you didn't look at it.) See; I even have pictures to prove it:
Some were not convinced:
In the end it sat around in our refrigerator for a few days getting all mixed together and runny in that way that jello does. Ultimately I ate some myself, and only when it was 2/3 of the way gone did I finally feel it was OK to part with it.
And so ends this year's jello tragedy. I swear I won't make it again next year, and now I have pictures to remind me why (as if Pete won't). ----------------------------------------------------------------
*One more related note regarding last year's party: I also had a cupcake disaster. The oil I used smelled a little... well, it had a smell, and I'm pretty sure vegetable oil's not supposed to (Hey Erin- remember the time when we made daddy's birthday cake using olive oil?) But I used it anyway and the resulting cupcakes tasted like they smelled. The worst part was that I brought a big batch of them to Corinne's Early Intervention playgroup and gave them to her teachers, peers, and their families before tasting them myself. In fact, I didn't know there was anything wrong with them until I noticed at the party that Pete's Uncle David ate only one bite before abandoning it. At that point I tasted one. I later mentioned the unpleasant flavor to David and he gave the the accurate descriptive word: "rancid". Oopsie!
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** Pete returned home from the grocery store later that day with a pre-made rainbow jello, complete with whipped cream. And it was only 99 cents. He labelled it "Plan B".
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