Cookies and Cream Pudding

The story of how this pudding came to be does not highlight one of my prouder moments.  It happened years ago when the awesome boyfriend and I first started trying to take better care of our health.  If you are a regular reader then you know that my battle with sugar was long and difficult.  They say that it takes two weeks to break a habit but for me and sugar it was more like 12 weeks before the cravings finally stopped.

The first few weeks without sugar were very challenging and there may or may not have been an incident where I threw myself, flailing, onto the bed like a child proclaiming that this was too hard and I was quitting.  The awesome boyfriend in his infinite wisdom dragged me to the grocery store and assured me that we would find something there to cure a sweet tooth.

We came home with a plethora of goodies including sugar free popsicles, low carb ice cream with sugar free chocolate sauce, peanut butter, very dark chocolate, and dry pudding mix.  After some careful calculations we decided that making the pudding with heavy cream instead of skim milk might yield some tasty, lower carb results.  I'm glad we tried it because it is delicious, and super easy to make.

Ingredients

1 box sugar free Jello pudding in chocolate fudge flavor

2 C heavy whipping cream

Directions

1. Add entire contents of dry pudding mix to a large bowl.  
2. Add 2 Cups heavy cream to dry pudding mix.  
3. Stir briskly with a whisk or a fork until powder has dissolved and there are no lumps.  
4. Use a spatula to transfer pudding to whatever containers you plan to store or serve it in.  
5. Place containers in refrigerator for 5-10 minutes.  
6. Serve cold.  Enjoy!  

Notes

• You don't actually have to transfer the pudding to smaller containers.  Sometimes I transfer it to cupcake size cups if I'm bringing it to a party, or I transfer it into single serve containers to keep at home.  If you have good self control you can just keep in the large bowl.  
• Make sure that whatever you store the pudding in has a lid.  You'll get a weird film on the top of it if you don't cover it in the fridge.  
• This dish is very calorie dense, so even though the carbs are low you'll want to keep an eye on that and not stuff yourself with it.  The entire recipe has about 630 calories so govern yourselves accordingly.  If you split it into 4 servings each one will have 160 calories and 7 net carbs.  Split it into 6 servings and each will have 105 calories and 4.5 net carbs.  

Halfway through I remembered that there are 2 Cups in a pint.
Go, team elementary school math.  

Tastes just like cookies and cream- I promise!

Ranch Butter Shrimp

Hidden Valley Ranch seasoning in packets is one of my favorite things to keep on hand.  It is good on almost everything, it comes in convenient single serving packs, and it costs something like 75 cents.  What more do you need?  I use it to make Ranch Pork Chops, Ranch Burgers, Ranch Pot Roast, and now, Ranch Butter Shrimp.

Ingredients

1 bag frozen shrimp

1 packet ranch seasoning

1 stick of butter

2 Tbsp lemon juice

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  
2. Place frozen shrimp in a colander and rinse with lukewarm water to thaw.  
3. Remove tails and shells from shrimp if necessary.  
4. Let shrimp drain in the colander for a couple of minutes.  
5. Remove shrimp from colander and pay dry with paper towels.  
6. Spread shrimp evenly over baking sheet.  
7. Melt butter in microwave and pour over shrimp.
8. Sprinkle ranch seasoning evenly over shrimp.   
9. Sprinkle lemon juice over top of shrimp.  
10. Bake in the oven for 12 minutes.  
11. Shrimp will be ready to eat when they have turned pink and warmed throughout.  
12. Serve immediately with a slotted spatula.  Enjoy!

Notes

• You want to make sure your shrimp are really dry at step 4.  They are going to release water while they cook.  If you put wet shrimp in the pan they are going to turn into a soupy mess.  
• Don't fret too much over getting the butter, ranch, and lemon juice perfectly spread over the shrimp.  All the flavors will even out during the baking process.  
• There are lots of spices you can use for this dish besides ranch.  The awesome boyfriend and I have also enjoyed it with Montreal chicken seasoning and curry powder.  
• If you're interested in the asparagus in these pictures you can find that recipe here.  The two dishes worked very well together.    

Here's the 411 on fresh versus frozen:  Most commercial fishing boats
flash freeze shrimp when they are caught, so a lot of times those fresh
shrimp that you are eating aren't really any fresher than frozen.  If you can
get fresh shrimp from a local vendor then do it, but if you're buying them
from the grocery store the frozen ones are just as good.  

I hope my mom doesn't see this.  She's always telling me not to put
shrimp shells in the garbage disposal.  

Fresh lemon juice is better, but I didn't feel like juicing a lemon.  I keep
this on hand for times like these.  

You can see how much liquid was released during cooking.  Also, I could
have done a better job drying the shrimp after defrosting.  If yours look
like this don't worry.  They will still be ranchy delicious.

If you've really got your act together you will cook the shrimp and
asparagus at the same time.  Dinner will be ready in a snap.