Grasshoppers

Despite my lack of love for most things chocolate, I have an inexplicable attraction to mint chocolate chip ice cream. So when I came across a Weight Watchers recipe for grasshopper pie on Pinterest, I decided it was a perfect candidate for my quest to try 52 new (to me) recipes in 2012. Find the original recipe here.

Crush 4 or 5 Grasshopper or Thin Mint cookies. (The original recipe says to use two cookies but that's absurd - don't listen. It won't even cover half the pan!

Grasshopper cookies taste a lot like Thin Mints, but if you have the opportunity to buy Thin Mints, do it! Support a local Girl Scout Troop instead!

Sprinkle the cookies over the bottom of the pie plate.

This is five cookies. Imagine what two would have been like!

Finely chop one square of semi-sweet baker's chocolate.

I used baker's chocolate but I'm sure mini chocolate chips would work well too!

Beat one 1 oz. package of sugar free, instant pistachio pudding mix, 1.5 cups of skim milk and .25 tsp. of peppermint extract extract with whisk for 2 minutes. Stir in one tub of fat free Cool Whip, and chopped chocolate.

I love the minty green color!

Pour into pie plate over crushed cookies and chill in the freezer for at least 6 hours until set. 

The original recipe says to garnish with two extra cookies, cut into quarters, but I decided that was fancier than I needed, so I left it pure and simple.

My verdict on this recipe? It was tasty, but I think that in the future I'll probably skip all these steps in favor of buying a pint of low-fat mint chocolate chip ice-cream. Though this recipe was fairly quick and easy, I think I'd get similar results taste and calorie-wise for less effort. And I'm pretty much always about low effort when it comes to food. :)