USA Recipes...

I have discovered an important fact about US based recipes and recipe books...

They are BIAS !

What do I mean?

Well...Most recipes I can't make for the sheer fact that I dint have access to the ingredients or they will take 8 years longer in prep than what the recipe actually says...

Despite the trouble of these little recipes I decided I would try on anyway for the sheer fact that I have been craving it and found two of the most important ingredients...Besides..the recipe only had 5 ingredients...so how hard could it be right?

My Aunt makes this great "green goo"

That's what I have always called it...come to find out its called Watercress salad...which I don't understand because 1...it isn't salad, its desert, and 2 it doesn't have water crest in it...Maybe the name is supposed to make you feel good about eating it because it sounds healthy??

Who knows...I still think the name "green goo" suits it better!

So in my Super Supermarket...yes that really is the markets name...

I found a package of pistachio pudding....Ingredient #1
AND a package of dream whip...somehow supplementing for Ingredient #2 (cool-whip)

Then in a supermarket down the road I hit the mother load..real USA marshmallows...Ingredient #3...

I bought a pineapple from the woman on the side of the road...Ingredient #4

and my Aunt told me Ingredient #5 was optional...good thing because I can't find a walnut to save my life!

So there I have it...4 out of 5 Ingredients for the green goo...

I look on the box and it says 15 minute prep...All you need is a mixing bowl, a can opener, and a spoon...

The "can opener" should have cued me off that my prep wasn't going to be anywhere near 15 minutes but well...off I went...

Mix the pudding with a 20 oz can of crushed pineapple...humm how much is 20 oz if I don't actually have canned pineapple...out came a cookbook...I was happy to find can conversions to cup size so I now know that it is about 2 1/5 cups...

Off I go...Peel the pineapple, cut the pineapple, put the pineapple in a chopper, measure out the pineapple and ta-da...I have 20 oz of crushed pineapple...and a mess...

I mix it up...then the lovely recipe says to mix in an 11 oz pack of cool whip...humm...

Okay so I take out the dream whip, which also needs to be made...measure out the milk, the vanilla and the package and dump it into my concoction...which then needs to be whipped so that it actually starts to resemble cool whip...Out came the measuring cups and the wisk...

Step two...complete...

Step three - mix in 1 cup of mini marshmallows...easy? well...I was lucky to find large marshmallows...so yeah...it would be a miracle for me to have mini ones...out comes a measuring cup, a chopping board, a knife and I start cutting the big marshmallows into small ones...

One cup later, I finally had all 4 ingredients into the mixing bowl, mixed it and put it into the fridge to set...

Looked at my clock...my 15 min USA can opener "easy" recipe took about an hour...and left a sink full of dishes in its trail...

What I discovered during this whole process??

Pineapple can be crushed
Marshmallows can be cut

BUT

Coolwhip can never be replicated

Maybe someday I will find a good ol' tub of cool whip in a freezer near me :)