127 Hours Jello Shots

I usually go all out with my Oscar parties, but this year Dave hosted and invited a few friends over and kept it small. I still couldn’t resist the urge to do some theme food and asked friends to bring theme food. Here were some highlights:

• Winter’s Bone Missouri Gooey Butter Cake – everyone flips out over this cake whenever I make it. Such a decadent delight.
• The Ballerina Buffett (aka, a veggie tray)
• Black Swan Punch – mix grape and orange kool aid, add vodka and it looks pretty murky and black
• The Kids Are All Right healthy, organic salad
• The King’s Speech Scones
• 127 Hours Rock Candy

I came up with the idea to make 127 Hours jello shots.  I’d use gatorade, which James Franco drank in the film, and lemon jello, and the finished product, when served in a “sample” cup, would resemble something else James drank in the film.  Here’s my recipe:

6 oz lemon jello
2 cup boiling water
1 cup gatorade
1 cup vodka

Mix jello with hot water until dissolved (about 2 mins). Add gatorade, stir. Let sit until steam dissipates.  Add vodka and stir thoroughly (1-2 mins). Pour into jello shot containers and chill for 4 hours or until set. Makes 20 jello shots.

If you can get over the associations from the movie, you’ll find it tastes refreshing. Some of our guests were grossed out, and some just don’t drink booze at all, so I had a bunch of shots leftover.  Too bad, because I’m sure the show would have been more entertaining if we were drunk on jello.

I don’t recommend these gatorade shots for use during your workouts, but if you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, you could do a lot worse. It’s the stuff that hallucinations are made of.

Long Island Iced Tea and Lascivious Jello Shots

I made 4 new Jello Shots for Jellopalooza.  It’s my hope they will make the meat and fish jello go down easier, but I don’t think my guests tend to overindulge in the jello shots enough to achieve that effect. I’ll describe them in the order they were ranked.

French Tickler

3 oz orange jello
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup cold water
1/4 cup cinnamon schnapps
1/4 cup vodka

This one was awesome and scored 4.3 on a scale of 1-5.  The Hot Damn! schnapps went well with the orange jello. It even smelled like cinnamon.  Ivanna wrote, “Nice and refreshing.” Larisa wrote, “super yummy for the holidays!” I would definitely make it again.

Midnight Affair

3 oz black cherry jello
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup amaretto

This one was also very good, scoring a 4.  Black Cherry jello can sometimes be hard to find, so when I see it at the store, I usually buy a few. It also is used to make fabulous Coke Salad! Anyway, amaretto makes for a smooth and tasty shot, combined with the black cherry jello flavor.

Sour Apple

3 oz lime jello
3/4 cup boiling water
1/4 cup cold water
1/2 cup vodka
1/2 cup apple pucker

This one scored 3.1.  It tasted a little antiseptic. Dave called it “mentholish.” Ron thought it tasted like “lime jello with a hint of now or later sour apple candy. not good.” Larisa, on the other hand, enjoyed it because it tasted like “a apple jolly rancher.” Perhaps more apple pucker, less vodka would help the flavor.

Long Island Iced Tea

6 oz pkg lemon jello
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup cola
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup gin
1/2 cup light rum
1/2 cup vodka
1/2 cup tequila

This one only scored 2.6. Not surprisingly, it tasted very boozy, which was a turn off for my guests who prefer the sweeter shots. Ivanna wrote “just tastes like alcohol. period.” Shelby, however, gave it a 5 because it was “yummy and strong.” Larisa thought it would be “good for a big sorority party.” Maybe increasing the cola would help, but then again, I’m not sure something named after Long Island Iced Tea should be watered down. If you like it hard, this one’s for you. Ram it down!

The standard mixing directions apply if you want to try these shots.  Mix jello with hot water until dissolved. Add cold water and stir. Let sit for a couple minutes, then add booze. Stir and pour into jello shot containers. 3 oz of jello will yield 8-10 shots.

All these recipes and tons more can be found in Your Complete Guide to Jello Shots by Aaron Wright.

You can buy jello shot containers at Party City.

Jellopalooza II: Savory Jello Strikes Back

Having not made a ton of progress on my quest to make every recipe in The New Joys of Jell-O, I decided I needed to have another all-jello luncheon.  I was pleased to have 5 returning guests from the last party, plus 4 jellopalooza virgins.  I decided to make more jello shots this time, in hopes that it would make the savory jello dishes go down easier.  Unfortunately, none of my guests were big drinkers that day, at least not in jello form, so there were more low ratings on the savory dishes.

Here’s the menu and the overall scores.  Reviews of the individual dishes will be covered in separate blog posts. Guests were asked to rate each dish on a scale of 1 – 5, with 1 being disgusting and 5 being delicious.

Jello Shots

French Tickler (4.3)
Midnight Affair (4)
Sour  Apple (3.1)
Long Island Iced Tea (2.6)

Jello Dishes

Banana Nut Ring with Ginger Topping (4.3)
Strawberries Romanoff (3.9)
Key Lime Pie (3.7)
Under the Sea Pear Salad (2.6)
Spanish Tuna Salad (1.9)
Molded Ham and Egg Salad (1.5)
Jellied Fresh Vegetable Salad (1.4)

Just like last time, everyone was still hungry after trying the jello dishes, so we ordered pizza. I think if I do this again, I’ll have to break the all-jello rule and serve sandwiches or something else to go with the jello.  There’s just a limit to how much jello a person can consume, and you need something to balance the sweetness, preferably something that doesn’t jiggle.

I have to say that I find the overall view of my all-jello buffet to be just enchanting. I love all the colorful food and the crazy molds. Unfortunately, eating it isn’t as much fun as looking at it.

Preparation was pretty uneventful this time. Nothing was as gross to make as the Salmon Dill Mousse had been the first time around.  The Molded Ham and Egg Salad was definitely the most talked about dish in terms of grossness to behold.  Most felt the taste wasnt as bad as they’d feared.  I don’t know how people felt about this in the 70s, but people today just dont want to eat meat, fish and vegetables encased in gelatin.  I doubt that any of the savory recipes in this book will ever score higher than a 2.  If you are reading this and you were an adult in the 70s who attended parties where savory jellos were served, please leave a comment explaining how you felt about it at the time.

My guests got a kick out of perusing my vintage jello cookbooks and the always jaw-dropping book That Amazing Ingredient: Mayonnaise! My friend  Ron noticed this photo of a swanky 70s all-jello party in The New Joys of Jell-O, and we all admired the color block dress. He suggested I should have all the guests dress 70s for the next soiree. I agree it would be fun, but I feel I am lucky enough that my friends are willing to show up and eat Molded Ham and Egg Salad for the sake of my blog – I’m not going to insist they wear bell-bottoms and afro wigs whilst doing it.

My dog Edgar probably ate the most of all of us. He even got tricked into eating vegetables, which he normally hates, since they were hidden in the Jellied Fresh Vegetable Mold.

Look for upcoming entries on each dish and jello shot.  And here’s all the pics from the party. My thanks to my brave guests!

Jagermeister Jello Shot

Yesterday I went to the Iron Maiden / Dream Theater concert at San Manuel Amphitheater in Glen Helen, CA (aka Glen Hell).  I decided to make some Jagermeister jello shots for the occasion. I took a recipe from Your Complete Guide to Jello Shots by Aaron Wright and tweaked it a bit.

Jager-Master

3 oz pkg orange jello (I used peach because I didn’t have orange on hand)
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup cold water
splash of grenadine
1/4 cup amaretto
1/4 cup jagermeister

Mix jello with hot water until dissolved. Add cold water and stir. Let sit a couple minutes, then add booze and stir. Pour into jello shot containers. Refrigerate 4 hours or until firm. Makes 8-10 2 oz. jello shots.

The jello shots came out looking like the color of iced tea. They were pretty tasty. The booze settled to the bottom a bit. Perhaps I didn’t stir long enough.  We had our own little heavy metal parking lot scene. Between 3 jello shots and some red bull and jager and not having eaten much all day, I got pretty drunk pretty fast. Unfortunately, we missed Dream Theater entirely due to traffic, tailgating and a 45-minute long security line into the venue. I have not had great experiences with this venue, but I have to go occasionally as it tends to be the only place the big metal shows play.  You would think by now they would know how to handle crowds better.

I wore my Ozzfest 2005 shirt to commemorate the last time I saw Maiden at the venue, when Bruce Dickinson’s feud with Sharon Osbourne led to Sharon pulling the plug in the middle of their set, throwing eggs at the band, and Bruce cursing her out on stage. I don’t think they’ll be back on Ozzfest anytime soon. Here’s a report on that crazy show.

Iron Maiden waited 30 minutes so that everyone had time to get into the venue before they started. They played about 2 hours. We were disappointed that the set emphasized new material and omitted a lot of classics. Still, the classics they did play such as “Fear of the Dark” and “The Number of the Beast” were awesome, and the giant Eddie onstage is always a highlight.  But, really, guys, you can’t play “Run to the Hills”?

Jello Shots for Jellopalooza

I figured my Jellopalooza party would be a good opportunity to try out some recipes from Your Complete Guide to Jello Shots, a book by Aaron Wright that I’d found on Amazon. This book is a very comprehensive guide to jello shots, with over 300 recipes involving all types of booze. Unfortunately, it seems to have had no copy editing and is riddled with typos. For example, the cover states. “This is not you’re grandmothers jello recipe book!”  These grammatical errors were an assault to the English majors at my party, myself included. But I can forgive this due to the many creative recipes in the book. There don’t seem to be typos in the recipes – at least, the three that I tried so far worked fine.

Bomb Pop Jello Shot

(3 oz pkg lemon jello, 3/4 cup boiling water, 1/2 cup cold water, 1/2 cup raspberry vodka, 1/4 cup blue Curacao)

The Bomb Pop got the highest score – 4.3 (on a scale of 1-5).  I agree it was quite tasty, though I didn’t like the murky color. It would be great to make this as a layered shot and have it be red and blue – perhaps I will try that next time.

“Nice frou frou jello drink” – Brian
“Make all jello with liquor!” – Kat
“I’m drunk already! Love the raspberry taste” – Mary
“Tasty, sexy and super-delicious” – Larisa
“I never had a jello shot before and I can see how it would be easy to get smashed on these” – Christopher

Melon Ball Jello Shot

(3 oz pkg Tropical Fusion jello, 1 cup boiling water, 1/4 cup cold water, 1/2 cup vodka, 1/4 cup melon liqueur)

This recipe called for pineapple jello, but I went to 4 grocery stores and couldn’t find it. So I substituted an exciting new jello – Tropical Fusion, which has pineapple and other tropical fruits in it.  I think it worked OK, but the shot did end up tasting like cough medicine for some strange reason. It also had no melon color, whereas the Midori combined with pineapple jello would.  It scored 2.7.

“Too strong” – Kat
“Medicinal – woo! hard core!” – Larisa

Rebel Yell Jello Shot

(3 oz pkg peach jello, 1 cup boiling water, 1/2 cup cold water, 1/2 cup Jack Daniels)

Being a big fan of Mr. Daniels, I had to make this one. I enjoyed it but some guests found it too boozy tasting. The alcohol seemed to have settled at the bottom of the shot. It received a score of 2.8.

“Too Daniels-y. Too strong” – Mary
“I’m floating in jello” – Larisa
“Very good but stronger at the bottom” – Darlene

Each of these recipes makes 8-10  2 oz shots. I found jello shot cups at Party City that worked quite well.  I wish I had made more. Guests really dug ’em, and a few more jello shots probably would have made the Salmon Dill Mousse and Turkey Souffle go down easier (if anything could).

Jellopalooza!

If you are wondering who your true friends are, they are the ones who will eat jello with anchovies in it for the sake of your blog.

Last weekend, I organized a Jellopalooza luncheon.  I wanted to get through a bunch of these New Joys of Jell-O recipes and a few jello shots, and I wanted some moral support when trying fish, meat, and veggie jellos for the first time.

When I sent out the invitation, I was surprised that 14 out of 15 invitees said they would be willing to come.  I told them in the invite they would be expected to try a few bites of everything, no matter how scary. The only excuse would be dietary restrictions or vegetarianism – but instant vegetarian transformation would not be honored.  So, with a full guest list, I began the planning.

Here’s the menu. All recipes came from The New Joys of Jell-O.

Green Goddess Salad Bowl
Turkey Souffle Salad
Salmon Dill Mousse
Jellied Gazpacho
Crown Jewel Cake
Frosted Mandarin Dessert
Easy Fruit Tarts

Trying to get my guests in the mood to be adventurous, I also decided to make three jello shots from Your Complete Guide to Jello Shots by Aaron Wright.

Rebel Yell Jello Shot
Melon Ball Jello Shot
Bomb Pop Jello Shot

I also made a scorecard where guests could score and comment on each jello creation.

I have to say the preparation was grueling. It required one trip to the party store for some decor and jello shot cups, a trip to Target for a springform pan for the Crown Jewel Cake, a trip to Sur La Table for tart cups, and two trips to the grocery store. I’ve never bought so much jello at once.  I started making jellos on Saturday around 4pm and worked til 1am. Graciously, my neighbor Larisa, one of my brave guests, allowed me to use some of her fridge space.  Multitasking on the jellos kept me on my toes, trying to make a couple at once and then watching over them since they required various degrees of setting (until thickened, until barely thickened, until firm, etc) before the subsequent steps.  I had a bit of a breakdown while making the Salmon Dill Mousse. I almost threw up. More details to come on the entry for that dish.

I had planned to also make a Jellied Salad Nicoise, but after the horrors of making Salmon Dill Mousse, I couldn’t face another fish jello.

On Sunday, I got up at 7am because I had three more jello dishes to make before the noon party.  Guests arrived around noon and were impressed with the table display, but of course, a bit wary.  Everyone tried everything they could, but there was a lot of disgust expressed over the savory jellos. I would tend to agree.  I can understand why Julie Powell struggled over the aspics during her Julie and Julia project. The combination of savory ingredients and sweet jello is just hard to face.  Luckily, the fruity jellos were a hit, as were the jello shots.  We did end up ordering pizza a couple of hours into the party.  Jello isn’t very filling, especially when the main course jellos are so disgusting, you can only handle a couple bites. After the last guests left around 5pm, the dog and I fell into a jello coma.  I was totally wiped out.  Nobody said this project would be easy.

On the scorecards, I asked guests to rate the jellos on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being disgusting and 5 being delicious. The highest rated were the Easy Fruit Tarts (4.6), Frosted Mandarin Dessert (4.1), Crown Jewel Cake (3.7), and Bomb Pop Jello Shot (4.3). The biggest loser was Turkey Souffle (1.4). One look at the photo and you can see why.  Other losers were Green Goddess Salad Bowl (1.8), Salmon Dill Mousse (1.7), and Jellied Gazpacho (2). The Turkey Souffle and Salmon Dill Mousse were big hits with the dogs, though. Someone suggested I may have a future in making dog food.

I was not able to eat any of the leftovers. I couldn’t stop tasting the savory jellos for a couple of days.  I may try another party later this year.  I may need a new guest list as I’m not sure I can inflict this on the same group of friends.  If you would like to volunteer, leave me a comment.  I will discuss the reviews of all the dishes in subsequent entries.

A big thanks to my awesome friends who participated in this historic event! And special thanks to my very supportive boyfriend Dave who actually gave the Turkey Souffle a 4 and said he thinks it would be tasty on a sandwich.

Click here to see all the photos from Jellopalooza