Patriotic Jello with Freeze-Dried Fruits

We originally posted this on our Food Storage Made Easy blog but thought it would be fun to share it here too since it uses Thrive freeze-dried fruits. This patriotic jello is completely a “shelf stable” recipe if you use freeze-dried fruits in it. It also works perfectly fine with regular fruit and cool-whip. It’s fun to know that you can make a creative and delicious treat for your family even if you are living completely off of food storage!

Patriotic Jello

Ingredients:
2 3-oz packages blue jello
2 3-oz packages strawberry jello
2 envelopes unflavored gelatin (Knox brand)
14-oz can Eagle Sweetened Condensed Milk

Optional Ingredients:
Thrive Freeze Dried Strawberries
Thrive Freeze Dried Blueberries
Spiff-E-Whip (I found this at Wal-Mart or Amazon)

Directions:
Gather all of your ingredients.

Make your blue layer of jello. Mix 2 packages of blue jello with 2 cups of boiling water until dissolved. Then add 1 cup of ice cold water and stir. Pour into a 9×12 pan. Sprinkle freeze-dried blueberries evenly into the pan and stir them in so they are covered with liquid. Let set in fridge for 4 hours or overnight.

Make your white layer of jello. Sprinkle 2 envelopes of unflavored gelatin into 1/2 a cup of cold water. After it thickens, add 1 1/2 cups of boiling water and mix in until it dissolves. Stir in the can of sweetened condensed milk until smooth. Let cool (but don’t leave it out too long or it will start gelling like mine. Oops!) Pour over hardened blue layer. Let chill for 4 hours or overnight.

Make your red layer of jello. Mix 2 packages of blue jello with 2 cups of boiling water until dissolved. Then add 1 cup of ice cold water and stir. Sprinkle freeze-dried strawberries into the liquid. Pour entire mixture over top of white layer. Let set in fridge for 4 hours or overnight.

Once the red layer has set firmly, you can decorate the top with a flag if desired. I mixed 1 cup of Spiff-E-Whip with 1 cup of ice water and beat with a mixer for about 3-4 minutes until it had a whipped cream consistency.

While beating the whipped cream, I reconstituted some freeze-dried blueberries and strawberries for the topping.

Spread the whipped cream over top and decorate like a flag. (You might want to plan better so that you actually have room for 13 stripes, unlike mine). Here is a view showing the top!