I Googled “jello toast” for recipes, but could only find one. I figure I can forgive myself for never having heard of it until last month on a friend’s blog. It seemed pretty straight forward… buttered bread with jello on it, bake it, and eat. Right? I was dubious, “So… just put pour the powder on? How much is too much? A thick layer, she says. How thick is thick?” I decided to go with the flow and let Arwen correct me in the comments.

Need: Sliced Bread

Now that we’re back from Grandma and Grandpa’s house where we were spoiled with fresh bread daily, the kids have been running the bread machine ragged. We have the same bread machine that they do, thanks to our Zojirushi connection in the family, but there are two differences between them and us. 1.) We are lazy, and 2.) We lack counter space to keep it out and ready to rock.

I asked Sarah to make bread. The recipe for white bread is right on the side of the machine for convenience and she has done it before so I had complete faith in her. (I did, however, remind her to put the paddles in the bottom of the pan before throwing in the ingredients. She has forgotten to do that in the past, and I don’t recommend it. Notice I didn’t say that we threw away the deformed, unmixed rock that came out. We ate it. Oh, yes, we did.) The next day, I asked her to show Zack how to do it. And then the next day, I asked her to let him do it, but shadow him to make sure he didn’t forget anything. I asked her to do the same thing with Seth.

Now every Haley kid save Zoe knows how to make bread in the machine. They are having their way with it! Seth has made bread for several days in a row. His first loaf was so beautiful that we all went nuts. It was enough positive reinforcement for him to keep me in bread indefinitely… or until the 102 pounds of free flour runs out. That’s going to be a sad, sad day, but let’s not go there. Moving right along…

Need: Butter

I’m pretty sure that any ol’ butter or margarine will do. Not sure about the vegetable spreads, but that’s an experiment that one of you readers will have to undertake.

Need: Jello

Any ol’ flavor of Jello will do. I used strawberry. Big surprise, right?

Don’t Need: Sugar

That one recipe that I found said to add sugar. Jello is all sugar, so I just trusted my friend’s version and did not add sugar.

Bake

When in doubt, I always use 350 degrees fahrenheit. I was in doubt. I didn’t time it either, so I’m not sure how long it took for the Jello to get crispy.

Eat

I tasted this when I had a sinus infection. I couldn’t taste my meals at the time, but I did taste this. For the taste to have broken through to my deadened taste buds just shows that you really don’t need sugar. The crispy parts are the best, and I would venture to say that there is no such thing as too thick when layering on the powder. In fact, don’t miss a spot on the bread.

Josh was not a fan. He said it was too sweet. (See?) The kids loved them and devoured them up and wanted me to make more on the spot. I didn’t, but I have made Jello Toast two times since. The snack reminds me of when I was seven or eight, a latchkey kid, coming home from school to an empty house, and scrounging up something to eat. I used to eat things like Swiss Miss hot chocolate powder, Kool-Aid powder, and Non-Dairy Creamer out of paper cup with a spoon. I’m fairly certain that Jello Toast was created by a latchkey kid who was allowed to turn on the oven.

What do you think? Wouldn’t it be great if someone would step forward with proof and tell how they created this simple and delicious snack? That’s a story I think I’d like to hear. Until then, I’ll just thank Arwen and give her credit for her brilliance. Thank you, Friend!

You guessed it! The log cake won first place (big pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups). Second place (bag of M&Ms) was the miniature camp ground cake. Third place (Butterfinger candy bar) was the giant “100″ made up of brownies and blue & yellow icing. It didn’t matter who won because all of the boys were very proud of what they created. I talked to a few brothers who were more than willing to throw their little brothers under the bus with exclamations of, “He just measured the water, but I made the cake!”

I suggested making Banana Pudding since Josh has been craving it lately. He even got a recipe emailed from his dad which he forwarded to me, begging and pleading for it to be made. I’m all about killing two birds with one stone these days. I read the recipe and felt it was simple enough for the boys to do together. In the interest of full disclosure… They did spill the milk all over the counter while mixing the pudding. The cutting board did flip over off the table and on to the chair. A banana did jump from the peel and on to the floor. (They asked to eat that one — gross, huh?) It was very hard to take myself out of the picture so that they could do their thing. I helped them decide what to put on the finished dessert. I drew the fleur de lis on to thin cardboard, but while Zack was cutting it up, he confused the positive and negative spaces so when it came time for the sprinkles, the design was not as tight as it could have been, but I felt he did a great job. He used both yellow and blue sprinkles. (It’s the sixth picture from the bottom.)

These are the only pictures I took and I did with my iPhone, so they’re not spectacular. I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture of the sign I did (with plenty of last minute help). I’m hoping that someone did and will email it to me. If I am so lucky, I’ll post it later.

For Grandpa Randy, Josh reports that the recipe is a very good one. Here it is below for those who are curious. The only thing we did differently is we had double the pudding and we were unable to let it set overnight. Sprinkles are not necessary either. In fact, they kind of just dissolved into a blurry mess, so I don’t recommend it.

BANANA PUDDING

1 box Nilla vanilla wafers
4 to 5 bananas
1 lg. Jello vanilla instant pudding
3 c. milk
8 oz. Cool Whip
8 oz. sour cream

Line bottom of 9 x 13 inch pan with vanilla wafers. Cover with slices of banana. Mix pudding mix with milk. Add Cool Whip and sour cream and mix. Pour wafers and bananas. Repeat layers. Set overnight.

I saw this on FriendFeed and thought it would be fun for the kids. They were pretty excited at first, but as it turns out, they can handle doing this for one package of hot dogs, but two packages is pushing their attention span. Seth was the first to fold because for six years he was the youngest in our family and those years helped him to master the art of quietly walking away while no one is paying attention to go do something less like work. Zack noticed, however, and tried to tell Seth to come back to the table and help because the more people that helped meant the faster we could eat. When Seth could not be persuaded, Zack followed suit and made his way back to Pokemon Platinum on DS. Sarah then complained that Zack just did what he was harping on Seth not to do, but she stayed with me for as long as she could (she had a Young Women meeting to attend). I could barely stick with it, but got the rest of the cut up hot dogs speared with the dry spaghetti. I experimented by pasta-poking the dog and leaving them on the ends. I wanted to see if the spaghetti would stay in and told the kids I was making jellyfish.

The poked dogs went into the hot water, and a little while later, the kids were excited once again to see what they had created. Zoe really likes hot dogs (her first time), so even though she had rice and cut up hot dog to keep her busy during dinner prep, she tried a spaghetti dog (or whatever they’re called) with gusto. She didn’t smile or laugh, but ate and flung spaghetti with a serious face–the neural connections were firing so I could tell she was enjoying herself. The boys liked them, too. They declined spaghetti sauce, but Zack took me up on gravy which I tasted and approved. What doesn’t get better with gravy? I liked it both with and without.

I have to admit that the pictures I took look disgusting. I mean, it’s kind of crafty and fun, but they’re still just hot dogs. I like them better in a bun with mustard and ketchup. And being an island girl, I would like them next best on rice with furukake or better yet, in chili over rice. This was my first time trying hot dogs in pasta (strike that, reverse it) and I’d probably not do it again anytime soon. It was fun for ten seconds.

Bakerella improved upon a recipe she found online—anyone who adds double the amount of peanut butter cups needed in a recipe has got my number. She deserves her fame and fortune. This lady makes some pretty amazing things to eat. Check out her cupcake pops… so cool.

1 glass (or plastic cup impersonating a glass)
lots of ice
icb cream soda (it’s caffeine-free unlike A&W)
heavy cream (yup. that’s right. not half and half)

Fill glass with ice, pour cream soda over that, then float heavy cream over that. The cream sits at the top, but will get mixed in with the soda eventually (but I try to prolong the separation for as long as I can by taking slow sips). When you take a sip there’s the crispy sweet of the soda mixed with the mild, fattening goodness of cream.

What a great combination… you’ll have a heart attack and a diabetic coma all at once. You’re welcome.