Lime Jello & Cottage Cheese Surprise

Last week on one of the blog parties, I stumbled across this really delicious snack from One Creative Mommy called “Mock Lime Cheesecake”. It’s basically a snack made with cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, water, and Jell-O, and walnuts for garnish. All the ingredients, except the walnuts, are put into a blender until smooth and then chilled. It becomes a thick cheesecake like consistency. I didn’t have lime Jell-O or ricotta, so I made it with just the cottage cheese and orange Jell-O instead. Yum!

For me, the “Mock Lime Cheesecake” is just the perfect amount of sweet, but my husband wanted more sweetness (he’s a work in progress when it comes to cutting down his sugar). He then proceeded to tell me about another dessert his aunt used to make with lime Jell-O, cottage cheese, pineapples, walnuts, and marshmallows. Sounded interesting, so I plugged in “lime Jell-O and cottage cheese” on our web browser and tons of the same recipe popped up.

BTW – you can also make this using whatever Jell-O and fresh fruits that you like. I’ve tried it with orange Jell-O and fresh cut up oranges and strawberry/banana Jell-O with fresh strawberries. Just make sure your fruits are sweet because no one wants to bite into a bitter fruit 🙂

Lime Jell-O & Cottage Cheese Surprise

Ingredients:

• 1 (20  ounce) can chunk pineapple, cut into smaller pieces
• 1 1/2 cups  miniature marshmallows ( 3/4 cup for heated Jell-O mixture and 3/4 cup to mix in when cooled)
• 1 (3  ounce) package lime Jell-O gelatin
• 1  cup cottage cheese
• 1/2 cup  chopped walnuts
• 1  cup  whipped cream (I used homemade – whipped heavy cream and powdered sugar)

Directions:

1. Drain pineapple and save the juice.
2. Add water to the saved juice to make it 1 1/2 cups of liquid.
3. Add the juice/water mixture into a saucepan and bring to a boil.
4. Add 3/4 cups marshmallow to boiling liquid and melt the marshmallows.
5. Add lime Jell-O to the liquid mix and dissolve.
6. Pour this into a 8″x 8″ pan. Place into the refrigerator for 20 – 30 minutes to cool and thicken.
7.  Once thickened, stir in pineapple, cottage cheese, marshmallows, nuts, and whipped cream.
8. Place back into the refrigerator for 1-2 hours until set.

***Since I’ve made this, I’ve also tried it with orange jello and sweet cut up oranges and strawberry/banana jello with strawberries. Both were delicious***

Picture Instructions:

Gather ingredients

Drain chunk pineapple, reserving the juice. Add water to the juice to make 1 1/2 cups of liquid.

Rough chop the chunk pineapples to make smaller bite size pieces. You could also use crushed pineapples, but I wanted bigger chunks.

Place pineapple juice/water mix into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add 3/4 cup of marshmallow and melt. Add Lime Jell-O and dissolve.

Pour into an 8″ x 8″ pan and put into the refrigerator to cool and thicken for 20-30 minutes.

Once Jell-O is cool and thickened, mix in cottage cheese, pineapple, remaining marshmallows, whipped cream, and walnuts.

Place back into the refrigerator to set for 1-2 hours.

Scoop out and serve. Delicious!

Wouldn’t this also be a great dessert for St. Patrick’s Day too?