All About Jello

For years, really, like (counts on fingers) 18 years, I have had an envelope with a little stack of recipe cards in it. I move it from time to time, not wanting to throw the cards out, but not ready to *do* something with them. You see, they were part of a dumpster-dive haul when the lady across the street from my mom got moved to assisted living, and her house was emptied and sold and torn down and replaced with a shitty McMansion. Lots of the cards are in Marian's handwriting, but some aren't and one's typed and finally today I got them scanned.

Five are for jello or jello "salads". I mean, when was the last time you had jello salad or gelatinized anything?

First up - Cucumber Jello salad. It's definitely in the "not a dessert" category, what with the onion. I'm going to guess that you have to chill it again after you stir in the sour cream and cucumber "cut in tiny chunks"?

Next, another "not a dessert" jello: Tomato jello. Raspberry jello and a can of stewed tomatoes. I mean, I think that isn't a dessert - but what the hell is it? A side dish for a roast chicken? I wonder who Louise Reiss is (or more likely, was).

Moving on, we have two things called "salad" but both skew more towards dessert for me.

Jan's Salad is black cherry jello with fruit cocktail and frozen rasperries - with the option of chopped pecans or chopped apples.

And Fruited Nectar Salad mostly kind of sounds dessert-y - with ingredients like apricot nectar, mandarin oranges, seedless grapes and chopped apple. EXCEPT she's got a note to serve it with mayonnaise...so maybe it's not dessert after all.

Finally, we have Dessert. Just that - the card is titled dessert, the name of the recipe is dessert. It sounds a little like a lemon mousse - an egg yolk custard stirred into orange jello and then folded into beaten egg whites. Honestly, it doesn't sound too terrible. If I had some orange jello in the house, I might make it.

Still to come: meat, condiments & dressings, non-jello desserts.