Chocolate Pie

Classic Chocolate Pudding Pie

Every once in a while I will pass by the Jell-O aisle in the grocery store and suddenly develop a craving for chocolate pudding. I will buy a box or two because it is an easy and quick desert, but I never get around to actually making the pudding. In theory pudding is always a good idea especially with cool whip, but I can never finish a whole batch and end up wasting most of it.

It wasn’t until I paid more attention to the back of the box that I became more interested in making the pudding. I turned the box over and saw that there was a recipe for chocolate pudding pie and I immediately thought… chocolate pudding + pie = best desert ever! This is a simple and easy desert, all you need are a few simple ingredients. Give it a try!

Classic Chocolate Pudding Pie Directions

You will need:

1 box of Jell-O Cook & Serve chocolate pudding mix
2 cups of milk
9 in graham cracker pie crust
Cool-Whip

Directions:

• Stir 2 cups of milk into dry powder mix in a small sauce pan over medium heat, bring to full boil while stirring constantly
• Cool pudding for 5 minutes and then pour into pie crust
• Refrigerate 3 to 4 hours
• Top with cool-whip and serve

Enjoy!

To Granny Cart, or Not to Granny Cart?

Image taken from: http://myveryworstjob.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/autumn-grocery-store produce.jpg

My discovery of Foodtown was an epic revelation that ensured I was not doomed to shop at the Bodgea on my block. Thank goodness! I was grateful to find a nice grocery store in my neighborhood, but there was still an obstacle at hand. The location of Foodtown is about a mile from my brownstone. This is an easy distance to walk when going to the store, but too far to walk back from with an arm full of heavy grocery bags. The subway is not easily accessible either, both locations being 2 very long blocks away from the grocery store. A cab ride home from the store would cost any where from $8-$12 dollars, totally a rip off for the short distance I need to travel. The bus, another lousy option, is unpredictable and always too crowded. As it turned out, my decision was just to walk home with my heavy bags. Hey, I can always use the exercise, right?

Walking home with my groceries is a decision I force myself to make and I regret it every single time. The weight of each plastic bag pulls on my fingers making my shoulders feel as if they are going to pop out of their sockets. I constantly have to stop and reshuffle the bags to regain feeling in my arms. It is a miserable experience that I continue to endure because- I love to eat fresh food. It is a slightly humiliating experience too as the old ladies shuffle past me with their granny carts. They look at me as though I have no sense at all. I would be lying to say that I didn’t agree with them. Using a granny cart would make the experience of walking home a little more bearable, but then there is the issue of getting the granny cart full of groceries up a three floor walk-up. Sigh.

Image taken from: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2672/3749082043_325b414ccf_z.jpg

It suddenly makes sense why there is an abundance of Bodegas in Brooklyn. My obsession for fresh food is the only thing that motivates me to endure the obstacles of getting to and from the grocery store. But, Bodegas seem to be nothing more than a lazy answer to a city’s need for easily accessible grocery stores. What they offer is usually not fresh or nutritious, but always over priced. I am happy to see movements such as Green Carts (mobile vendors that sell fresh produce), the farmers market and Farm Share programs make their way into my neighborhood, but it is still not enough. In the end, my hope is that one day access to fresh food will be a right and less of a privilege.

Just a Girl Trying to Find Food in Brooklyn…

Without a doubt my morning is made a million time better when I think about the food I get to eat. I love food. I love to eat it, buy it, smell it, eat it some more…well, you get the idea. Food makes me happy. But, sadly I do not have a ‘green thumb’ for cooking. It is a skill that passed me by and it has not been such an easy skill to acquire since I made the move from Minneapolis to Brooklyn. In Brooklyn good grocery stores are hard to come by or worse yet, far enough away that I have to plan a week in advance to go to one. My grocery plight would be solved if I had the money to invest in a car, but that is not the case at the moment.

I moved to Brooklyn in the middle of January 5 years ago. I had no idea where anything was and I was a little worried that I was doomed to shop at the Bodega on my block for the rest of my life. During my first shopping experience in a Bodega I was surprised to find a plump, yet kindly looking cat sleeping on a bag of rice. I was a little grossed out to find dried up cat poo a couple of shelves down from where that cat was napping. Ugh. Let’s just say I visit the Bodega when I go through a spontaneous baking frenzy and I am out of things like milk or butter. I figure, cat poo has no business being in a refrigerator, right?

Shopping at the Bodega for food was not going to cut it. So, a few weeks after I moved in I set out to find a grocery store. Surely, there had to be a decent grocery store near by. Not quite sure which way to walk, I made my way to Fulton Street. I took a chance and made my way past Fulton Park (which is not really a park, but I will get to that later) and towards what looked like a small “shopping center”. When I say “shopping center” I want you to imagine three small shops connected to one another with bright neon signs brightly describing each. There it stood, between a fried chicken spot and a Chinese take-out– a grocery store. I walked in with a silly smile on my face. I was ready to shop!

I imagined it would be the same as a grocery store in Minneapolis. First you would walk through the produce aisle, mosey on down to the deli and then make your way through the frozen section. Of course, the experience would not be complete until I wandered each non-refrigerated aisle to load up on much needed goodies before heading to the check-out line. Boy, was I sadly mistaken. This little grocery store was just a larger version of a Bodega, with outlandish prices to match. I was disappointed to find a lousy pick of produce that definitely was not fresh and only three non-refrigerated aisles.

The bright side was that there was a deli, but the hairy man behind the counter with no hair-net made me wonder what type of surprise I would find in my sliced turkey. I walked the entire store in less than three minutes. I managed to purchase a box of Pecan Sandies, a tub of whip cream, a few bagels and a small container of cream cheese. $18 dollars later I realized I still had a food dilemma. Where is the REAL grocery store?

It wasn’t until two months later that a kind soul took me on a field trip to Fairway! I was in heaven…fresh produce, a deli man with a hairnet and aisle upon aisle of non-refrigerated food! I made that trip count and I savored every moment of it. I still remember being excited to find dillweed in the seasoning aisle. It was a great experience, but I have never made a second trip to Fairway. I would love to, but to get there would require at least one transfer on the subway and then an additional bus ride. It is just too far away.

Eventually, I discovered that only a mile away from my brownstone is a grocery store called Super FoodTown. It is not that ‘super’ in size, but it has what I need…and I have never seen a cat roaming its aisles or cat poo on the floor. In the past 5 years my hunting and gathering adventures have led me to explore why grocery stores are so hard to find in Brooklyn. As difficult as it has been to find a decent grocery store one thing remains the same- I love food. As a matter of fact, I am going to make lunch right now!