Tuesday, May 22, 2007

jello salad days

Tony at EvilGanome touched me with his post about country people and dinner and jello salads. I miss simpler times, though I love my life today. Since I'm back to avoiding work today (I worked all week last week), I looked up my mother's recipe for Cottage Cheese Salad in the First Lutheran Women's Guild book of Our Favorite Recipes. This is one of those fundraiser cookbooks and it's full of recipes from the good Lutheran women I remember from childhood: Grandma Wolfe, Mrs. Dorothea Gutzman, Mrs. Gonterman, my grandmother, my mother, all of those grand church ladies.

In the front of the book is a dedication: This book is dedicated to the Modern Home. In our home today, as always, life is centered around our kitchens. It is with this thought in mind that we, The Sponsors, have compiled these recipes. Some of them are treasured old family recipes. Some are brand new, but every single one reflects the love of good cooking that is so very strong in this country of ours.

Cottage Cheese Salad from Miss Audrey
2 pkg lime jello + 1 T sugar
2 c. hot water
Mix above ingredients and let cool 15 minutes. Add in order given:
1 carton country style cottage cheese (small curd)
5 marshmallows, cut up
1 c. mayonnaise
1 tall can Pet milk
2 apples, chopped
1 c. chopped nuts
1 c. crushed pineapple

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12 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmm, I don't know about this recipe, Lynette! I'm guess I'm not big on lime jello.

However, I love the classic "Ambrosia Salad", which I think can be found in "The White Trash Cookbook" (have you seen it? if not, it's a real hoot).

Basically: mini marshmallows, canned pineablle chunks, canned mandarin orange slices, shredded coconut, and sour cream. White trash heavenly memories of summer picnics in New Jersey. Anyone who'd turn their nose up at food like this is just a snob, right?

May 22, 2007 4:25 PM  
Blogger Willym said...

Again Lady you amaze me - as I thought back to Victoria Day celebrations with family and friends I started thinking about all those salads and casserolle things that my aunts and cousins brought to our family picnics. Some were quite wonderful like Aunt Lil's Marcaroni salad - others like Aunt Beryl's jello mold (mould???)with canned fruit salad was .. to put it in a kind Christian manner - crap!

And where would we find a tall can of Pet milk today?

May 22, 2007 4:25 PM  
Blogger Willym said...

Oh my god I just got a flashback to the look of joy and accomplishment on Aunt Beryl's face ever time she uncovered that bloody jello mold - ah maybe it wasn't that bad after all.

May 22, 2007 4:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Lynette: Just about to travel to my mother's....will post 'recipe' for apple shortcake upon my return home!

Hope all you people in the northern hemisphere summer are enjoying the warm weather...and jello!!
Cold Winter weather here!

BJ.

May 22, 2007 4:51 PM  
Blogger eric3000 said...

Those church recipe books are the best! Many seem to include things like: "Add water to the instant Jello pudding mix..."

I thought that my mother had handed down a special family recipe for banana bread but the recipe turned up in a church cook book and she didn't put it there. It was word for word, with just a slight variation in the phrase, "I use one large pan but grandma uses two smaller ones." That recipe was my one inheritance, damn it!

May 22, 2007 5:55 PM  
Blogger BigAssBelle said...

you are all so sweet! isn't it funny how our memories are so often tied up with food?

joe, i love that ambrosia salad. i think there's another version called 5 cup salad, something like that.

willym, it was aunt beryl's pride all wrapped up in love. no replacement for that.

BJ . . . can't WAIT!!

eric ~ my husband's mother is known far and wide for her amazing selection of christmas cookies. i've never told anyone in her family, because it's a point of pride for them, but every one of them is straight out of Betty Crocker c. 1960 :-)

May 22, 2007 6:31 PM  
Blogger Vashta Narada said...

I'm a country Lutheran girl (and a church secretary to boot!) so I know ALL about them jello salads and casseroles and other pot luck specialties.

My family would revolt if I didn't make Watergate Salad at every holiday dinner and picnic: 1 can crushed pineapple, 1 box pistachio pudding, 1 container Cool Whip and a couple cups of mini marshmallows.
Stir together and serve.

As for Christmas cookies, I am the keeper of the family recipes that my grandmother learned from her mother. I've made addicts out of people from several different states from our family Sand Tart recipe. And my father expects Grandma's Gingerbread Men every Christmas, or else there's something terribly wrong with the world.

May 22, 2007 7:40 PM  
Blogger Willym said...

In my glory days as a sub-deacon in the Anglican church we had what we called a 'penitenial dinner' followed by Evensong and Litany every Wednesday during Lent. Evanne Reeves - a maiden lady of a certain age and a character right out of Stephen Leacock - made her tuna-potato chip casserole for every dinner.

My introduction to my godson's mother was a plaintive voice crying in church hall wilderness: Oh my gawd I left home 'cause my mom cooked like this!, As she vaillantly tried to swallow a fork full of Evanne's Campbell Soup label speciality.

May 22, 2007 8:09 PM  
Blogger evilganome said...

My goodness what a walk down culinary memory lane. Tuna casserole, ambrosia salad. Did anyone else grow up with no bake cookies? How about American Chop Suey? Now that was pretty nasty. To my mothers credit, she did make homemade baked beans, but some of the stuff that came out of cans! Mercy.

May 23, 2007 8:20 AM  
Blogger Bea said...

I love this salad. My Aunt Lois made it for every holiday dinner. Then she always forgot to put it on the table, so we et it for breakfast! I am going to make this salad calories be damned.

May 23, 2007 11:41 AM  
Blogger TitanThirteen said...

That recipe was looking fine...untill i read about the pet milk! lol

May 24, 2007 6:58 AM  
Blogger dpaste said...

You lost me completely with the pineapple, but we've already talked about this.

May 24, 2007 1:38 PM  

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