May 15, 2011 by Tarrant Figlio
Can you get any more retro than a gelatin salad with cottage cheese and pineapple? Well, yes, but not much more.
Go on and give it a try. Remember though that you must use canned pineapple–fresh pineapple will not gel.
1 large can grated pineapple (translation for modern times: crushed)
2 cups sour cream
2 cups cottage cheese
2 packages lemon jello
1 cup hot water
Dissolve Jell-0 in hot water. Cool until syrupy. Add other ingredients. Chill until set.
Category Fruits, retro food, Salads | Tags: | No Comments
October 8, 2010 by Tarrant Figlio
For a couple where one person loves food and the other just will eat…sometimes, we have a romance that involves food in the oddest ways. Perhaps not. Doesn’t everyone have a food story that also speaks of love?
One of the recipes Denise loves is my mock chicken salad. I make it with tofu. Once upon a time I used Yves Chickn for it, but that became unavailable. It started as a recipe either in my mother’s curried chicken salad (known as “Bird of Paradise Salad” ) and at a vegetarian restaurant (The Laughing Seed) in Asheville, NC restaurant where we landed on a mommy weekend early in our relationship.
We sat as vegetarians in a restaurant full of options just for us and couldn’t make a decision. Vegetarians usually have it easy in the south–if there is a vegetarian option, there will be only one. Denise decided on the Mock Chicken Salad and when it came I said “Oh! It is just like my mom’s–except she uses chicken.”
I then went home to find a vegetarian mock chicken salad, but decided to create it from how my mother made her chicken salad.
It makes me laugh when I see recipes like the following for Mock Chicken salad. (and isn’t the picture a winner?) I so wouldn’t think “Hey, I am out of chicken, how about I make chicken salad out of veal.” Note, it does also recommend pork which I sometimes have left over. On the other hand, the whole shaping into balls totally makes this a no go in this house–even if the walnut eaters and olive eaters were the same people.
2 cups cold veal or pork cut fine
3/4 cup finely cut celery
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
2 tablespoons chopped olives
Mayonnaise
Lettuce
Mix meat, celery, nuts, and olives.
Add enough mayonnaise to moisten and shape in small balls. Arrange these balls on lettuce on individual salad plates. Garnish with olives and mayonnaise.
(Another recipe from January 1923, from a feature called “Winter Salads” in Modern Priscilla.)
Category Meat, Poultry, Recipes, retro food, Salads | Tags: | 4 Comments
July 26, 2010 by Tarrant Figlio
Bacon! That should be enough to grab your attention. Wilted salad can sound so blah though if you have either not had one or have only had a really wilted one (which makes it icky in my opinion).
This recipe makes 6 servings of salad. Best made fresh and served immediately. Do expand the image to read some interesting history of wilted salads. This came from The Evening Sun, but no idea what year.
8 strips bacon
1/4 cup vinegar
2 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 quarts torn leaf lettuce
1/4 cup chopped green onions
2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped
8 minutes cooking time. Cook bacon in 10-inch skillet over medium heat until crisp, about 6 minutes. Remove bacon and drain on paper towels. Crumble bacon and set aside. Pour off all but 3 tablespoons bacon drippings. Combine vinegar, water, sugar and salt with the 3 tablespoons bacon drippings. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar, about 2 minutes. Combine lettuce, onions, and bacon in large serving bowl. Add hot vinegar mixture and toss to coat lettuce. Garnish with hard-cooked eggs and serve at once.
Category Salads | Tags: | 5 Comments
December 15, 2009 by Tarrant Figlio
Magpie’s comment to my pie disaster caused me to look for the red hot jello recipe. It doesn’t appear to be here. How can that be? It is the family FAVORITE. Even the vegetarian child who knows gelatin has animal products in it makes an exception here. It is his ONLY exception.
I have eaten this since a child and served it on holidays my entire life. This was the last food requested (and I believe the last meal eaten) by a woman whose child I cared for as her nanny. She passed away in her early 40s from breast cancer after a horrible last couple of years. Mostly though, I associate this with my kids, holidays, and gathering together in joy.
1/4 to 1/2 cup cinnamon imperials/red hots-I encourage the kind from the candy section-the ones in the decor/baking section do not reliably dissolve perfectly and cost more. On the night before Christmas-I will take them in any form whatsoever if for some reason we are out.
2 cups water
1 packet Knox Gelatin
1 large box strawberry banana Jell-o
1 jar applesauce-unsweetened (but if you get sweetened it won’t be the end of the world)
Set water to boil on stove with candies in it. Stir and wait for all candies to dissolve and rolling boil to be reached. While doing this mix the dry gelatin with box of strawberry gelatin. (Yeah you can do the soften gelatin in a few tablespoons of water thing-but I end up with lumps and why bother if you can mix it together dry.) When candies dissolve and you have a good boil (usually boil comes first) dump that into the gelatin combo. Stir until all gelatin is dissolved. Add one cup cold water and the jar of applesauce. Stir. Now…here is the thing about this…if you let the gelatin partially set before you add the applesauce or if you stir while the gelatin sets-you will get a more even distribution of applesauce. Otherwise, you end up with about 1/4-1 inch of non textured jello. This really doesn’t matter to anyone but me. I often forget to do this because I am too busy making other things on holidays. If you don’t add the Knox-no worries-it won’t come out as firm and I wouldn’t flip it on a plate but it is still yummy. Add another cup of cold water, more applesauce, more red hots. It is a forgiving recipe. It also doubles well.
Category Recipes, retro food, Salads | Tags: | 1 Comment
