Testing a Vegan Jelled Dessert

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Simply Delish Product Review

As a mother of many young adults, I am privileged to feed a family whose members have different dietary requirements and preferences. My late mother was nut allergic, my daughter is vegan, one of our children’s significant others is dairy allergic, another is a carnivore, one son is mushroom and onion averse and the list goes on.

I am respectful of all of their requirements and look forward to the CHALLENGE of feeding them. Being sentimental about past family dinners, I remember my mother always having a jellied salad on the table. My mother-in-law also was a wonderful jellied-salad creator.

Unfortunately, gelatin – as inconspicuous an ingredient as it may seem – is just NOT VEGAN. Wikipedia tells me that

“Gelatin or gelatine (from Latin: gelatus meaning “stiff” or “frozen”) is a translucent, colorless, flavorless food ingredient, commonly derived from collagentaken from animal body parts“

Body parts? Say it isn’t so. So I searched for a substitute. I came across Simply Delish at Well.ca recently and tried it out for our recent Thanksgiving Dinner. Simply Delish is described as a plant based gelatin dessert, so I was really excited to try it out. I bought the Orange 20g box. It is labelled as Sugar Free, Vegan Friendly, Non-GMO, Keto Friendly, /lactose free, nut free and gluten free, no preservative, natural colour, natural flavours.

Its’ ingredients are erythritol (a plant based sweetener), citric acid, potassium citrate, natural colour, natural flavour and stevia extract.

For my last minute orange jellied salad experiment I mixed the powder with 1/3 cup of the juice from a can of mandarin oranges (substituted from the box’s directions to use 1/3 cup of cold water). Then I added a little over one cup of boiled water (the directions called for 1 1/3 cup boiled water – I used less because I was going to add some fruit containing more liquid). I whisked it all together, and then tossed in the drained can of mandarin oranges. I then refrigerated for a few hours.

The orange jellied salad came out just like Mom’s basic orange jellied salad and had a nice zippy orange taste. This time around the salad wasn’t fancy – BUT next time around I will use this product to make some old fashioned jellied salad recipes.

This product worked well, met all my guests dietary needs and tasted like old fashioned “Orange Jello”. I can’t think of any reason not to make jellied salads a new but Vegan tradition on my dinner table.

Here are the links!