Wednesday, February 01, 2006

New Invention: Chocolate Yogourt Pudding

I had my first class of the Winter semester today, Legal Drafting. This means that I'll be posting drawings again soon. (I'll get to the pudding in a minute.) I actually did a drawing in class today. I didn't colour it because it's a small class and the prof doesn't know me yet. I thought he might think I'm bored if he sees me take out my coloured pencils.

So I'll colour the picture tomorrow in Evidence.

The Legal Drafting prof gave us a quote I like:

The goal of the legislative drafter is not to draft a law that a reasonable person can understand.

Instead, it is to draft a law that an unreasonable person cannot possibly misunderstand.

When I got home from school, I decided to boil up some dumplings and broccoli. (I'm coming to the yogourt pudding really soon.) I got the broccoli stem pieces boiling, came up, read some emails and then went back downstairs to add the dumplings. Guess what! I'm out of dumplings. Time to buy more. So my supper was what I believe would be an Atkins-friendly meal of broccoli with spicy peanut sauce. [Dumpling and broccoli instructions here.]

That's when it occurred to me that tonight would be the perfect night to try making yogourt pudding. (I told you we'd get there.)

Ever since I made the Toxic Waste for Halloween, I've been thinking about fun things to do with pudding. I bought a few boxes at the Loblaws on Saturday and just after I bought milk to add to it, I walked past the yogourt section and thought, hey!

750g of (plain) yogourt is just more than 500ml which is how much milk you're supposed to add to the instant pudding. So I just mixed it all together. At the first scent of the yogourt, I thought, oh, no, this is not going to work. But I didn't let that stop me. I kept going with the mixer for the full two minutes. Then I put the bowl in the fridge. Wait, no, first I took a taste of the pudding from the beaters. It tasted good. I removed the beaters from the mixer, licked them off, threw them in the sink and then put the bowl in the fridge.

Five minutes later, I scooped some into a dessert bowl. It had a nice thick pudding consistency and a rich flavour. Almost like a soft cheese cake taste.

But here is the thing that has me really excited. By the time I finished the bowl, I felt like I'd had enough. If that had been ordinary pudding, I would have wanted more. Lots more.

8 comments:

coyote said...

Okay.... but generic pudding...?

David Scrimshaw said...

Coyote,

I wouldn't have thought a semi-mythical totemic beast would be a brandsnob.

a) Name brands are not part of my aesthetic or inventing philosophy (unless it's discarded packaging.)

b) I suspect that when mixed with yogourt the brand of the pudding is not going to have a large impact on flavour.

coyote said...

You may be right, and in general I agree with you about brand snobbery. But in my semi-mythical totemic experience with pudding mix, a few pennies extra for the good stuff is way more than worth it. That generic crap tastes like the chalky barium drinks that X-ray technicians with evil intent toward GI tracts force upon unsuspecting victims, with the fraudulent assurance, "...tastes just like a chocolate milkshake..."

Not!

David Scrimshaw said...

I've never tried a barium drink, but I've tasted chalk. Chalk is more of a texture than a flavour. (Back when I was an abusive school teacher one of the ways I penalized wrong answers was making a big chalk dust cloud near a student. I hope I didn't scar them for life.)

Anyway, there's no chalk flavour or texture in the no-name brand I buy.

My imagination suggests that barium might taste like the stuff that leaks out of an old battery. If so, the chocolate pudding doesn't taste like that either.

S said...

Did you use "no name" yogourt? There's what looks like a non-no-name yogourt tub in the photo. Hmmm. In your view, does "President's Choice" count as no-name? I buy a lot of that stuff. The bran flakes are really good.

David Scrimshaw said...

I didn't see any "no name" yogourt, so I bought one that seemed to be inexpensive.

That's good to know about the PC bran flakes.

As to my view on whether PC counts as no-name -- for soft drinks: definitely; for cookies: I don't think so.

Do you remember President's Choice Cox's Orange Pippin Apple Juice? I stopped drinking apple juice when they stopped selling it.

accidental altruist said...

Next time yer outta dumplings just come to our place. We favour the pork n' chive ones & usually have at least 2 extra bags.

S said...

No I don't know the President's Choice apple juice, but it sounds like it was good.

I do think that on average there is a significant taste difference with (yellow) no name products, but as you say in some recipes it doesn't really matter. And you have to keep your eye on the price -- sometimes the brand name is close in price, or cheaper if it's on sale.

The yogurt in the pudding is definitely a hot dessert idea though. Yogurt is so versatile and good for you.