Jellied Fresh Vegetable Salad

Hmm, did 70’s parents think their kids might be more willing to eat fresh veggies if the veggies were encased in jello? If so, I think they were wrong. This was a foul concoction. It has the distinction of earning the lowest score at Jellopalooza 2: 1.4 out of 5. Yes, even Molded Ham and Egg Salad did better at 1.5.

I guess as a consolation, I can point out the dish is mostly healthy, if you overlook the sugary jello component. I took lemon jello, added bouillon, vinegar, salt and pepper, and sour cream. The vegetables in the mold were celery, radishes, cucumber, scallions, and green pepper strips.  The jello mold had a sickly cream color, probably due to the sour cream. It looks deceptively like pudding. Per the book’s suggestion, I garnished with lettuce. I did not serve it with French dressing – another suggestion of the book. It seems odd to me to put salad dressing on top of jello. And French dressing could not have saved this dish.

My guests were united in revulsion.

“This is absolutely terrible. I thought Ham and Egg was the worst…but no” – Sara
“Not horrible, still wouldn’t want it” – Brian
“Salty jello. Least favorite of the savory” – Ivanna
“Not my favorite, but a pretty cream color – cool presentation” – Larisa
“Salt doesn’t go well with it.” – Dave

Maybe I was too heavy-handed with the salt, but I don’t really think anything could save this jello mold.  A plain old salad may be dull, but it’s definitely preferable to salad vegetables in jello. If you wonder why my progress on getting through this cookbook is slow, it’s due to recipes like this one.

Spanish Tuna Salad

Here’s another recipe I made for Jellopalooza 2 that I have put off writing about since it was foul.  My last attempt at merging fish and Jello – Salmon Dill Mousse – was so harrowing that I had to take several weeks off from the jello mission.  I still have nightmares involving canned salmon. Spanish Tuna Salad wasn’t as terrible, but it certainly wasn’t tasty, either.

What exactly is Spanish about it? I have no idea. The recipe involves lemon jello, vinegar, salt, pepper, tomato, cucumber, celery, onions and tuna. I made it in my fish mold. The recipe recommends garnishing with mayonnaise. Mayo and tuna, I understand. But mayo and tuna and jello? I disregarded this advice.

The dish scored a 1.9 on a scale of 1-5.

Some guest comments…

“Savory + Jello = Ugh” – Ron

“It wasn’t as bad as Ham and Egg, but gross!” – Sara

“Better than the last fish dish, but that’s not saying much” – Brian

And the loan positive comment…

“Edible” – Larisa

For some reason, the authors of The New Joy of Jell-O felt this recipe was worthy of a 2-page photo spread. Even the pretty china place settings and teapot, and the cozy fireplace in the background cannot make this dish look appetizing.   It’s like putting lipstick on a pig. Or putting mayo on tuna jello.

Under the Sea Pear Salad

I had high hopes for this one, but it was disappointing.  I love pears, and I love jello and cream cheese combinations. But somehow, this one didn’t quite deliver. I don’t think the ginger really went well with the pears, and the ginger flavor was too dominant even though I only used the requested 1/8 teaspoon.

The recipe called for canned pear halves, lime jello, salt, lemon juice, cream cheese, and ginger.  There’s a layer with cream cheese in the mix, and a layer without, so the dish has a pretty appearance.  For some reason the recipe recommends serving with mayonnaise. Mayonnaise? I didn’t do this. I have to draw the line somewhere. Maybe that is why the dish didn’t do well? Would mayo have actually improved it? Mayo, ginger, and pears? Blech.

I’m guessing they added the mayo because this recipe is in the “Salads that Make the Meal” chapter. Every other recipe in that chapter involves veggies, meat or fish (or all of the above).  So I’m not really sure why this fruit dish is thrown in there. Maybe the mayonnaise addendum was a last minute thought to help the recipe fit into this chapter.

Guests scored this a 2.6 on a scale of 1-5. Perhaps it would have been more appealing if I hadn’t made it in the brain mold?

Some guest comments…

“No…just no” – Sara

“Odd flavor” – Brian

“Baby food?” – Ivanna

“Pretty presentation” – Larisa

“Pear is a nice presence but the ginger is overwhelming.” – Christopher

Molded Ham and Egg Salad

I’ve been dreading making this recipe ever since I saw the picture in the book.  While I do dig on swine, I don’t really care for ham. And I don’t much like hard boiled eggs either – in fact, I had to visit ehow to find out how to properly hard boil eggs in order to make this recipe. Pathetic, I know, but I never eat ’em. Anyway, I figured if I was going to have to endure this dish, it would be easier to be surrounded by friends at Jellopalooza II.

This is the first recipe I’ve made from the “Salads for the Slim Life” chapter of the book. Making the dish was pretty easy. I chopped up a ham steak, hard boiled and sliced the eggs, and chopped celery and onion. The recipe called for lemon jello, with some vinegar added to cut the sweetness. I was supposed to use a loaf pan, but I don’t have one, so I used a small cake pan.  I set a shallow layer of gelatin and then layered the egg slices. I then mixed the other ingredients into the rest of the gelatin mix and put it on top of the egg layer. I followed directions but my egg slices floated up a bit into the rest of the mix and the finished project didn’t have the neat rows of eggs like the cookbook illustration. Maybe I didn’t let the bottom layer set long enough, or maybe it’s because I used the wrong pan. Oh well, I don’t think neat rows of egg slices would have made this dish more attractive or palatable.

Surprisingly, it didn’t taste as horrible as I expected. It was edible, especially if you didn’t think about it being a jello dish and focused on the ham and egg flavor.  The look of the dish is just so foreboding, however, that it’s pretty impossible to enjoy.  My guests graded it a 1.5 on the scale of 1 to 5 (1 being disgusting, 5 being delicious).  So it came a close second to Jellied Fresh Vegetable Salad (1.4) for worst dish of the party.

Some comments…

“Even the ham and eggs aren’t tasty.” – Dave

“The look alone…” – Ron

“Ewwww! It’s horrifying to look at AND to taste!” – Sara

“I really need negative ratings” – Brian

“Just tastes like ham and egg and jello. Doesn’t go together but not bad/nasty” – Ivanna, who gave it a 3 – very generous!

“The most terrifying to behold. So meaty! Flesh n’ Jello” – Christopher

If you are wondering why the party guests in the jello cookbook photo are smiling, I would say it’s because they are sitting far away from the Molded Ham and Egg Salad and they haven’t eaten it yet.

Bacon Vodka Jello Shots

So, I’ve been neglecting my jello duties. Sometimes life interferes with jello-making. Like I went to Burning Man for a week – you really can’t make jello under those conditions. But now I’m back, and it’s time to catch up.

My colleague HungryKat came up with the idea of having a Bacon Vs. Dessert Cook Off at the office.  There would be prizes for the best bacon item, the best dessert, and a grand prize for the best dessert involving bacon. Naturally, I wanted to try for the grand prize, and I wanted to involve jello. I didn’t find many jello and bacon recipes online, and none in my cookbooks, but I did find this intriguing jello shot as created by the inspired bloggers at My Jello Americans. Browse their site and behold true jello artistry!

I didn’t have time to follow their directions and make my own bacon vodka (it takes weeks), but I did find Bakon – bacon-flavored vodka – for sale online. I ordered a bottle, along with the gummy fried eggs that would be the garnish.

This was my first time using Knox gelatin – the plain stuff – and I think I would blame the failure of this jello shot on the Knox.  I’m not sure what flavor would have been better, but perhaps peach would have gone well with the bacon – in a bacon-wrapped melon kinda way. It certainly would have looked nicer. The beige color of the plain gelatin made the drink resemble a shot of jellied gravy. Well, really, when you float bacon in jello, it’s just probably not going to taste very good no matter what you do.  Adding maple syrup didn’t improve things. You can put lipstick on a pig, but…

Although I knew they were too noxious to win, I decided to bring the shots to work for comedic value, and people did get a kick out of them. Some brave souls ventured to try them, but I didn’t get many votes. Some complained the shots were too big, which was true, but I had to make them big enough to include a small piece of bacon, plus the gummy fried egg, so a standard shot glass wouldn’t suffice.

In the boozy bacon department, Bacon-infused bourbon was much more successful and tied with HungryKat’s bacon-wrapped hot dogs for the Best Bacon award.  A gooey butter cake won Best Dessert (yay for the St. Louis creation!), and some delicious bacon toffee took Best Bacon Dessert.

I don’t know if I’ll ever find a jello and meat recipe that works. But I guess I’m going to have to keep trying if I’m going to get through The New Joys of Jello…

Salmon Dill Mousse

I think I put off writing about this Jellopalooza recipe because making it and eating it was just such a horrific experience that I had to take 2 weeks off making jello to recover.  The fishy smell and taste of the canned salmon mixed with the sweet lemon jello, plus mayo and sour cream – well, it was just an abomination. I’ve had nightmares about it.

It’s just insane that this dish is pictured in the book as part of an all-jello wedding reception in the chapter entitled “Salads for Special Events”.  The bride and groom look so happy – they obviously haven’t yet tasted the Salmon Dill Mousse. Says the book, “Lucky is the bride who has her reception prepared by the loving hands of family and friends.” Um, lucky is the bride who gets a caterer!

The recipe calls for lemon jello. Once thickened, you blend in canned salmon, sour cream, mayo, minced onion and dill weed.  This is where things got frightening. I had not eaten canned salmon before. I expected it to look like canned tuna. I was not prepared for it to have bones in it.  The experience of pulling out the bones, some skin, and what looked like vertabrae (the recipe refers to it as “flaking”) was somehow just repulsive.   I’m not the only one who feels this way – I found a thread about it. And here’s a blog entry on cluckandtweet.com, where the resulting fish patties turned out good but the pics of the canned salmon really show the grossness. I borrowed one of the pics to post here.

The fishy smell was overwhelming. I love salmon in restaurants and never find it to be fishy, but this canned salmon was just really pungent.  After flaking the canned salmon, I threw it into the jello and added the other ingredients.  Blending it was an exercise in trying to hold back nausea. The greasy mayo mixing in with the fish and the jello and sour cream – blech.  I had to leave the kitchen for a few minutes and then steel myself to come back and finish.  I knew at this point that it was going to be just as disgusting to eat as it was to make.  I poured the mix into my fish jello mold and left it overnight.

As the time approached for the party, I wondered if I could actually serve this. It did successfully mold, so I guess that is one positive thing I can say about it. It still smelled fishy, and it looked pre-digested.  Knowing my friends had signed on for a difficult mission in attending this party, I put it out on the buffet.

Not surprisingly, people were repulsed by it, and it scored 1.7 (on a scale of 1-5). It was the second-to-lowest rated dish, after Turkey Souffle (1.4).

Some comments…

“I slightly like this better than turkey. On a cracker, it would be almost like regular mousse” – Ivanna
“Oh my god! Destroy this recipe NOW!! It’s like I found a fish by the side of a river.” – John
“Great on a sandwich” – Dave, who gave it a 4.*
“Vile, and I love salmon and dill.” – Kat
“Wrong. Just wrong” – Aaron
“Shouldn’t be cold. I would eat it if I was stranded on a desert island” – Mary
“Awful smell and taste was not great” – Brian
“Sweet and meat – especially jello dishes – just doesn’t work.” – Darlene

On a positive note, my dog Edgar loved it.  He lapped it right up.  I saved the leftovers to give him but found myself unable to open the tupperware for fear of the smell wafting back up my nostrils. So it sat in the fridge for a couple days while I tried to work up the courage, and then I just threw the whole thing out. Sorry, Edgar, but this Salmon Dill Mousse was just too much for me.

*Dave is my boyfriend, and he’s the only person who praised this one and the turkey souffle. He’s sweet, but I think you should take the boyfriend factor into account when evaluating his comment.

Turkey-Souffle Salad

My Jellopalooza guests called this one “vile” and I would have to agree.

The recipe called for lemon or lime jello, so I went with lime since almost all the other savory dishes call for lemon. I’m not sure this was a good choice, since the mint green color wasn’t very appetizing. But really, turkey flavored jello couldn’t have saved this one.  After mixing the jello with boiling water, I had to throw in mayo, cold water, vinegar, onion and pepper and beat the mixture.  It’s quite disgusting to blend mayo into jello, especially at 7:00 AM, since I made this the morning of my party. I then had to freeze the mixture for 15 minutes until firm about 1 inch from edge  but soft in the center.  I then spooned it into a bowl and whipped it and folded in the turkey and chopped veggies (green pepper, celary, pimiento). I used ground turkey and this didn’t work well. It turned out like hard little turkey balls in the middle of the jello.  I’m not sure why the turkey got so hard, since it was only in the fridge maybe 3 hours. I’d like to guess that turkey breast might be more palatable, but really, would it? Nothing is really going to make turkey in jello taste good.

The directions called for pouring into mold and chilling until firm, unmolding and garnishing with salad greens or additional mayonnaise, if desired. I didn’t desire any more mayonnaise.  This thing came out of the mold messy. I didn’t soak the mold in warm water, so maybe that’s why. Or maybe it’s because this is the jello dish from hell! It looked predigested. I really considered throwing it out without serving it, but for the sake of science, I soldiered on.

Not surprisingly, my guests found it revolting, scoring it 1.4 (on a scale of 1 to 5). So did I. The adjective I would use is “noxious.”  It was the lowest-rated dish of Jellopalooza. The turkey had no flavor, and the idea of turkey in jello was just hard to overcome even if it had flavor.  There is no joy in this particular jello.

Some comments…

“Not good. Turkey and jello is just weird.” – Ivanna
“This tastes like drunken leftovers at the end of a 12-hour holiday bender” – John
“Great on a sandwich” – Dave*
“Turkey coated in vileness” – Brian
“It should not exist on this Earth. Vile.” – HungryKat (seen here gagging)
“Something made the turkey very hard. Not good.” – Darlene
“I’m vegetarian – thank god!” – Larisa, who got to abstain

* Dave is my boyfriend, and I found it very sweet that he had the lone positive comment on this dish. But you should probably consider that fact when valuing his judgment here.