~Instant Custard Gratification~

In the spirit of Earth Day, my parents and I spent the sunny part of today re-potting the vegetable seedlings into bigger pots and sowing more seeds in our vegetable garden. It's officially Spring and I love it. The air was filled with aromatic fragrances from the cherry blossoms and it was breezy but not cold. Sayonara Winter and Hello sunny days! After all the hard work, I decided to treat myself to a quick sweet treat...custard. Along with its thick and creamy consistency, I love the various flavors that are available. When we were in India, my mom used to make it for us all the time with these powder packets manufactured by Brown and Polson and Rafhan.

They had a variety of flavors to choose from: good ol' vanilla, raspberry, pineapple, banana, and mango. I used to eagerly watch while my mom made it. She heated up the milk, stirred in the powder slowly and then let it set in the fridge. I'm sure the whole process was all of 30 minutes but for a kid, that could seem like a decade. Since those custard packets are not readily available, I made custard-like dessert with the Jell-O Instant pudding packets.

Did you know Jell-O Instant pudding is available in Vanilla, Banana Cream, Lemon, Flan and Pistachio flavors? Pistachio was the biggest surprise for me. The next surprise was how much time it took to make it...5 minutes. No wonder, it says instant on the label. The ones from India required you to store the warm custard in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving it. With Jell-O pudding, it's ready when you want it. And if you want to make it more interesting, add some fruits. I recommend adding apple, banana, orange and mango pieces. Yum!

Nothing like settling down with a bowl of custard after a long day of gardening!

***Quick Tip - For a more aromatic and tasty custard:

- Add powdered cardamom to a tablespoon of milk, heat it in the microwave for about 30 seconds and add the mixture to the cold milk before mixing the pudding powder to it. This infuses the cardamom flavor and makes the dessert even more tasty.