A Healthier Gelatin

Until I had a child, I never paid that much attention to food labels. Now, I read everything. It is shocking the foods that have artificial colors, artificial flavors, preservatives etc. If it has any of these, I avoid feeding it to my child. These ingredients were not meant to be in foods and I think the health effects are yet to be seen. My little one has been under the weather a few times and I struggled with what to feed him. Jell-O is a great food for such an occasion. However, every time I went to the store and looked at what was in the box, I just couldn't feed it to him. I recently saw a post on the cooking board I read for someone trying to make their own Jell-O. I set out to research a recipe and found one on the Whole Foods website. I made this today and can honestly say, it tastes as good if not better than the boxed mix. I especially love how versatile this recipe is. You could make mango, pomegranate or custom combination fruit mixes. It takes gourmet to a whole new level! For my first experiment today, I made Strawberry Banana. I have to say this recipe is so easy, it really didn't take me any more time to make this than it would have to make a box of Jell-O. It also only has 1 Tablespoon of additional sugar. The rest of the sugar are natural sugars from the fruit juice.

Gelatin Fruit Dessert

Source: Whole Foods

This treat is great with many of your favorite juices or fruit nectars (avoid pineapple, kiwi and papaya juice though). Vary the fresh fruit according to season; we like raspberries, sliced grapes and blueberries.

Serves 4

• 2 cups berry juice (I used V-8 Fusion's 100% Strawberry Banana Juice)
  
• 1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 cup fresh fruit (I omitted to make the Gelatin plain)
  

Pour 1 cup of the juice in a medium heatproof bowl. Sprinkle the gelatin over the juice and dissolve.

Combine the remaining juice and the sugar in a small saucepan. Bring just to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat.

Pour the hot juice mixture into the gelatin mixture and stir to combine. Pour into four ramekins, small ceramic bowls or one medium bowl. Add the fruit and chill in the refrigerator for 4 hours or until firm.