Salads - Fruit Salad

Poetry time!

A gay and crispy salad
Is such a tempting way
To give a fussy family
Green leafies every day.

Leafies!  Everybody loves leafies!  Granted, having two little boys in the house promotes silly language like this.  This happy little poem at the beginning of the Salads section only serves to throw you off your guard for the horrors that lie within.  After looking through the section, Sarah puts it this way, "Looking through the ingredients, everything looks fine and then comes something horrible.  Why would you put that in there?!"

For example, there is a recipe for Black Cherry Salad.  Sounds good, right?  Everybody loves cherries.  Here are the ingredients:  can of pitted bing cherries, lemon juice, orange gelatine, [then here's where things start to go down hill], chopped pecan meats, [and then *cringe*], stuffed olives.

But then there is the truly scary.  Here are the ingredients for Shrimp Salad:  chopped shrimp, chopped celery, stuffed olives, chopped onion, nuts, green pepper, mayonnaise, hard-cooked eggs, cooked macaroni, salt, and pepper.  RUN AWAY!  DON'T TURN BACK!  If that salad starts chasing us down the road, I'm tripping you so it gets you first.

AAAAAAAAH!

Fortunately for us, there was a more or less ok-looking salad on the first page of the Salads section.  We may live to see another day.  I'll be sure to keep an eye on the salad to make sure that it doesn't do anything suspicious.  Here's what we've got.

The dressing recipes are too frightening to display.

Preparation

Looking at the recipe, it's another simple one; mix and set.  But looking at the ingredients, I am not filled with confidence.  I'm also struck with the realization that I've not made jello at least since I was in high school.  

Who would have thought that this could be combined to make food.

Well, here we go.  After I got the gelatin partially set, it was time to mix everything else.  I drained the pineapple, as was indicated, then it was time to whip the cream.  Sarah was concerned about my use of cream for this recipe.  She asked me a few times how much I needed to use and if there would be any left.  In terms of what is important in life for Sarah, I would say that in order of decreasing importance, her list looks like this:  James and Thomas > me > whipped cream > other stuff.  To be honest though, I'm not exactly sure on the order of the second and third items there.  Regardless, I started whipping the cream while Sarah looked on with concern.

While I had he mixer in hand, I had a strange mix of Salt-N-Pepa and Devo stuck in my head.

Salt-N-Pepa: Aaah shhhh whip it.
Devo: You must whip it!

Welcome to my brain.

Anyway, back to mixing

Phone picture not so good, nor is the outlook for this salad.

Now for more digressions!  First:  maraschino cherries.  I remember thinking these were some of the best things in the world and even eating a bunch of them out of the jar at my grandmother's house.  But wow, they taste nothing like cherries.  But at least after eating them, you have a good idea of how good a kisser you are, right?

Guess how many knots I was able to tie that stem into?  Did you guess none?  You're right.  Sorry, Sarah.

Secondly, I need to make note of one of the very few dishes we have that share a vintage (more or less) with the cook book.  Sarah got our salad mold from her grandmother.  One of her traditions at Thanksgiving is to make an orange salad that would look pretty familiar to the Ladies of Zion, and have it set in this salad mold.  While I generally wouldn't probably choose jello salads to go with a meal, I think it is great to have a dish like this.  I hope we keep making orange salad for years to come.

If we're lucky, we'll have a pretty flower impression in the top of our salad.

Back to our regularly scheduled blogging.  After folding all the ingredients with the partially set gelatin, this is what we had:

Another bad phone picture, battery on my camera wore out.

After a few hours in the refrigerator, here is the result.

All I need now are some big green lettuce leaves to put this on.

Tasting and Reaction

Sarah is skeptical.

 Earlier, I gave James a lick of the scraper I used to fold the salad together and scrap it into the mold.  He was excited until he actually took a lick.  He immediately made a face and told me that he didn't like the walnuts.

James is happier since he knows we didn't give him any walnuts.

James – Mmmm.  This is good.  This is good, Daddy.

Me – What do you like about it?

James – I like the white part.

Sarah – You like the white part? What about the cherries?

James – Not as much.

Sarah takes a bite and makes a face.

Sarah – I think the flavor is ok.  It’s just the texture.  *deep sigh*  Jello should not be chunky.

James – Why you don’t like the chunky part.  I like the chunky part. 

Me – this should probably be on a lettuce leafe.

Sarah – With mayonnaise?

Me – There’s no mayo in the recipe.

Sarah – With thousand island dressing?

Me - Ick.

Sarah then starts scooping things from the salad.

Sarah – I don’t really want the cherries.  I don’t really want the rest of this.  Can I have my bowl of whipped cream yet?  This is a waste of perfectly good whipped cream.

Me – I’m a little unsettled by the sudden texture of the cottage cheese.

Sarah – Yes.  It’s the texture.  The flavor is fine.

Me – the nuts are completely unnecessary.  If you want some kind of texture, put something in there that is not a nut. 

Sarah – I think it would be… Well, I do not like the nuts.  I would be more inclined to eat it without the nuts.

Me – I’m not really getting any lemon out of it.

Sarah – there are chunks of lemon jello in it.  I think it is mainly contributing sweetness.  When I first took a bite, I tasted lemon, but less so with later bites.

About this time, I noticed my neighbors outside eating dinner.  They are a little younger than my parents, and she grew up very near Thief River Falls and knows people who attend Zion.  After explaining the salad and telling them that I wouldn't be the least bit offended if they decline, I offer some to each of them.  Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of Deb and Tom with their good-looking dinner out in the beautiful late-summer evening.  They both really liked it and began reminiscing. 

Deb – This looks like it’s right out of the 50s.

Deb – Eating this makes me feel like I’m in a church basement.

Tom – This is exactly like what my mom used to make.  She called it 24 hour salad.

Deb – My mom made something like this too, with the walnuts and all.  It was an Easter tradition.

 Well, out of the five people who ate the Fruit Salad, two liked it, one was ok with it, and two generally didn't like it.  So maybe the salad deserves an overall grade of a C?  It is sweet enough.  It's kind of fluffy, except where it isn't.  There is no question that it'll be finished.  I don't know that I'll get any help from Sarah and James, but I'll be able to finish it.  It won't be with excitement that I dish it up though.  I guess I would put this on par with the Stuffed Cucumbers.  It's not bad, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is good.

If you want a good salad, try this one; It's delicious and has been the salad of the summer.  Green Bean Salad  

Well, we survived our first round of salads.  Up next:  Candy!