I was having a chocolate-craving one day this week, and scrounging through my kitchen cabinets for anything chocolate related. Sadly, since I don't keep any junk food stocked in my kitchen (for fear of devouring it in one sitting), when I opened my cabinets I was instead faced with dry beans, rice, quinoa, canned tomato sauce, and a variety of tea. (There was some Dagoba Organic Drinking Chocolate left from winter, but that wasn't cutting it for me.) Way in the back, on the top shelf I managed to find this...
I'm going to admit right here and now, I bought this Trader Joe's Instant Chocolate Pudding solely because of the cute packaging. Good job whoever designed it, you sold me!
I haven't eaten instant pudding in years, but the thought of it gives me flashbacks to when Emily and I lived in Queens for a year after college and ate copious amounts of Jell-O Fat Free Instant Chocolate Pudding, WITH Fat-Free Cool Whip as a daily dessert. This was when we were both still oblivious to the harmfulness of processed foods. Fast-forward 5 years later, I wouldn't touch a container of Cool Whip with a ten-foot pole. (Although I will dream about the days when eating it straight out of the container seemed so delicious).
Of course I checked the ingredients on the Trader Joe's pudding, and although I wasn't thrilled that it contained "Modified Cornstarch" (modified anything just doesn't seem all that great), it did have less ingredients than Jell-O Instant Chocolate Pudding, and none of the artificial colors (why does pudding need coloring?!?).
Anyway I was indulging, so I didn't spend too much time thinking about it because the pudding set very fast...
And it fixed my chocolate craving for the week!
Along the way on my pudding-ingredient search, I found this recipe for quick chocolate pudding from scratch. Try it out and let me know how it is!
