It’s recipe day — and I’ve been working on a healthier version of an old favorite. I found a recipe for Lemon Cloud on a low glycemic Web site.  However, I have learned a lot during the years I have been writing this blog.  In particular, I’ve seen that many ingredients used to make foods lower glycemic and less fattening are unhealthy in other ways. This has led me to try major clean-ups on some of my favorite recipes.  The first attempt to fix this one led to a mouth-puckering failure!  Here is the final result, which does work.

 Lemon Cloud

Ingredients

• One package unflavored gelatin
• juice of two medium lemons
• One can of coconut milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 8 oz. package cream cheese
• Sugar substitute to taste (about 1/2 cup)

Directions

Place the coconut milk in an uncovered bowl in the refrigerator for several hours, or overnight.

Juice the lemons and add enough water to make one cup of liquid.  Bring to a boil and dissolve the unflavored gelatin and about 1/4 cup sugar substitute in the hot water.  Add one cup of cold water and refrigerate  until it begins to thicken.

Beat the  room temperature cream cheese with about 1/4 cup sugar and the vanilla.

Whip the coconut milk in the chilled bowl until it is the consistency of whipped cream.  Whip together with the cream cheese mixture and the slightly thickened gelatin.  Refrigerate until thickened.

The coconut milk is much healthier than the non-dairy whipped topping and it gives a coconutty flavor which blends well with the lemon.  If you don’t like the taste of coconut, you can use whipped cream instead.  It’s still better for you than the stuff in the round plastic container.

Lemon Cloud is good just by itself as a mousse.  It also makes a great lemon cheesecake pie filling on a low glycemic crust. Hmm.  I’ll have to print some piecrust options next week.

Eating to live and living for Christ,

Susan Jordan Brown