How to use up: Instant pudding mix

Yay, my second post in this series! But of course, you have to get through a little back story first. I'm sorry it's a little long! You can skip down to the list if you want, it's kind of depressing anyways.

There was a time about a year and a half ago, that we had bare cupboards and nothing but a half dead stalk of celery in the refrigerator (before I found out how awesome it could be!). This was after the main wire to the power pole in our trailer house became loose enough to spark, melting the wire, the casing, and blowing the big industrial fuses. The lack of power of course shut off everything, and the un-professionals that first came to look at it somehow wired it back without the ground, so we temporarily had power before everything went dark again. However, because of the way they wired it, it somehow sent surges throughout the entire house, blowing up multiple light bulbs, a power strip, both of our window a/c units, our microwave, and the refrigerator.  Not only did we have to suffer through a couple 90-degree nights and 100+ days without a/c, but of course all the food we had in the refrigerator and freezer went bad.

It was the middle of summer in the south, and my youngest was only a few months old. It took several days for them to get a professional out to fix it. On our second or third day, after we had all slept miserably for a couple nights, my husband took us to a hotel. Thank God. Baby still didn't sleep well in an unfamiliar place, but at least we had cool air and the use of a nice big pool.

Coming home after the repair wasn't awesome though. We had to again deal with the high temperatures and spoiled food. The cost of replacing our a/c units  and other devices (we couldn't NOT, it was too hot), coupled with the cost of emergency food and the cost of a hotel, left our bank in the negative and our bills overdue. Because of that one incident (and lack of savings of course!), it took us at least a month to catch up on everything. In the meantime, we had very little to eat and were surviving on charity from my mom and local organizations. At the very end, when almost all the charity food was gone, and it was still several days until my husband got paid again, I came upon our salvation.

I was digging in the cabinets looking for something to feed us, when among the spices and seasonings, I saw two tall unstable towers of flavored gelatin and instant pudding mix! It seriously rescued us, and sustained us for two days. I didn't have much milk, but I had enough to make one box of pudding, and of course plenty of water. My oldest thought it was an awesome summertime treat to eat pudding and jello for two days. I thought - well I'm sure you can imagine what I thought - but at least we were eating.

This story alone makes me realize how far we've come in a year. Hallelujah. I sincerely hope to see as much progress a year from now.

However, the point is flavored gelatin and instant pudding mix are two very, very common things to receive in a charity food box. When you don't have milk for the pudding, it gets put away until you do have milk, but then it's either forgotten about in the back of the cabinet, or your hardship goes on long enough that you have to ration every drop of milk for awhile. When you are finally ready or able to make it, you discover you have waaaay more than you thought you did. Prepared pudding has a lot of dessert uses itself, but really you can only eat so much! Luckily there are a few other uses for the mix by itself too.

How To Use Up Instant Pudding Mix!

Baked goods are really where you can use up large quantities of prepared pudding or mix. Luckily cake mix is another one of those common charity box units. It all depends on what you have on hand of course, and sometimes that isn't much, but I hope this helps anyways.

For Prepared:
Make layer cakes, and use for filling and/or frosting.
Make tortes by layering cake or cookie chunks, fresh fruit, pudding, and whipped topping.
Use as no-bake pie filling
Make frozen pudding pops, yum!
Use vanilla or caramel pudding for dip for fruit like bananas, apples, and strawberries.

Dry Mix:
Mixed into whipped topping to make a lighter frosting, or then frozen for "ice cream".
Mixed into the mix/batter of almost any baked dessert for extra moisture and softness (any cake, cookies, muffins, banana bread etc.) Depending on the flavor you use, it can also add another dimension of taste! Lemon pudding mix in white cake mix is scrumptious!
Use as a thickener for smoothie or protein shakes. (Let it sit a few minutes or it will be grainy).
Mixed in for flavoring in hot chocolate and coffee, even iced coffee. (But let sit a minute like above.)
Mix into plain yogurt to make it taste better than gross.
Mix into canned pumpkin to be eaten as is, or in a recipe.
Mix with a tiny bit of Miracle Whip, or just by itself as dressing for fruit salad. It mixes delightfully with the fruit juice to make a dressing and ads flavor.

Do you have any other uses to add? Does anyone know of any recipes that aren't desserts that use pudding mix? Also, let me know if you have an idea for what you would like to see next in the series!