Special Edition: Rainbow Jell-O Cake!

Rainbow Jell-O Cake
adapted by Rachel Perlow

In honor of GLBTQ Pride Month, as well as the forthcoming Supreme Court decisions on Prop 8 and DOMA (as I write, they're still putting it off as long as they possibly can...) I bring you the shimmering delight you see above you, the fabulous Rainbow Jell-O Cake!

Now, as my mother would say, making this cake "ain't for sissies". You will need a good 4 1/2 hours of constant attention, so I'm sorry ladies, it's not the kind of recipe where you can complete a step then go to the other room and watch your stories.  This needs constant tending and attention, so if you're not up for it, don't even start.  That being said, I wouldn't be averse to you sitting in a nearby breakfast nook with a highball and cigarette, thumbing through People magazine while you create your masterpiece.

The ingredients you'll need:

8-3/4 c Boiling Water
7 pkg flavored Gelatin, 1 each of the 6 different colors of the rainbow, plus one extra, either red or purple
1-1/4 c Vanilla Yogurt (smooth and creamy works best), or sour cream, or cool whip

The first thing you'll do is line up your colored Jell-O boxes next to five large cups and 1 quart-size bowl or measuring cup. Put each Jell-O color in its own cup, and whichever color you bought two of goes in the quart bowl.  You can probably do whatever you want order-wise, especially if you're doing the highball method, but for authenticity's sake I urge you to do the colors in rainbow order, which you'll all remember is Red-Orange-Yellow-Green-Blue-Purple.  So, if you're starting with red, as I did, then purple will be the color you buy double of.

Into each cup put the Jell-O, and 1 1/4 cups boiling water (2 1/2 cups for the double batch).  Stir each color until the Jell-O is completely dissolved. I suggest a separate stirring implement for each cup, to avoid cross-contamination. You should end with an artful display of colorful liquids like so:

Lightly spray a 10-cup Bundt pan with cooking spray, wipe out, and off we go!

Beginning with your first color, pour 3/4 cups of the dissolved Jell-O into the pan.  Chill in the fridge for about 15 minutes, until the Jell-O is set but not firm (it should slightly stick to your fingers when you touch it. So keep your hands clean.)

While the first layer is chilling, stir 2 tablespoons of your binding agent (yogurt, cool whip, whatever; I used vanilla yogurt) into the remaining liquid mixture.  You should arrive at a Play Doh-hued mixture like thus:

Make sure to whisk or stir all the lumps out!

Pour the creamy mixture over the set layer. You'll want to either spoon it in, or pour it slowly over the back of a spoon, to avoid breaking the layer below. I'll demonstrate!

Chill the creamy layer, again until firm but not set.  I can't emphasize this enough. If you wait too long, your layers won't bind.

Repeat the above steps for each successive color. You'll find that each layer takes less and less time to firm up, which is why you must pay careful attention!

When done, you should have twelve alternating clear and creamy layers.  Refrigerate overnight. Sorry, this is non-negotiable, you can't expect to whip this up in the morning for your evening Pride march.

The unmolding will be a harrowing experience, I suggest having a helper on standby.  I set the bundt pan on a plate to chill, then when it came time to unmold, set the serving plate on top, then had Husband help me to flip it.  You'll also want to give your mold a ten-second swirl in a sink of warm water before unfolding, to loosen it up.

If your heart is true and your intention clear, you too will have a glorious and sickeningly-sweet rainbow cake to impress your next gay gathering (I mean, I'm not saying that the gays have completely co-opted the rainbow - this would also be suitable for children's birthday parties or Noah's Ark-themed Church functions, I suppose.)

Old-Fashioned Cole Slaw

Old-Fashioned Cole Slaw
Joys of Jell-O, pg. 58

I didn't set out for this blog to become entirely about gelatinized versions of your favorite dishes, but it does seem to be shaping up that way, doesn't it?  I'm going to have to do a little more research into this, but I'm starting to believe that gelatin, in particular Jell-O brand (America's favorite!) can change one's brain chemistry so that one starts to crave it, as Husband has been doing lately.  In fact, we almost came to blows because he requested a classic fruit-cocktail-in-Jell-O dessert, and I, being an already-busy homemaker, tried to half-ass it, and was chastised for not presenting a dessert that was just so!

And then came the miraculous day- we were eating cole slaw, alongside some grilled bratwurst. Husband had been discussing his hopes that another gelatin dessert would be forthcoming. And then he uttered a phrase that will live in legend in our household for eternity:

"Is there a way to put cole slaw in Jell-O?" 

Because, I mean, of course there is, there's a way to put anything in Jell-O, as anyone knows who's spent as much time thumbing through 1962's The Joys of Jell-O as I have.

So, let's get right to it, shall we?

1 package (3 oz.) Jell-O Orange-Pineapple, Lemon, or Lemon-Lime gelatin

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup boiling water

1/2 cup cold water

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon grated onion

1 tablespoon prepared mustard

2 tablespoons vinegar

1 teaspoon sugar

3 cups shredded cabbage

1 tablespoon parsley

2 tablespoon pimiento

Dissolve Jell-O Gelatin and salt in boiling water. Add cold water; then blend in remaining ingredients. Chill until slightly thickened. Pour into a 1-quart mold or individual molds. Chill until firm. Unmold. Makes about 4 cups, or 8 side salads.

This is so simple to put together, it almost felt like cheating. In fact I did cheat a little bit, by using a bag of already-shredded cabbage instead of shredding it myself, but I figured the convenience cooker of the 60's would have done the same had it been available.  My nod to authenticity was using Duke's mayonnaise and French's yellow mustard. And, of course, I used lemon Jell-O, which is always the go-to flavor if you're given the option.

What we thought: Since Husband knew the ingredients already, I decided to spring the dish on an unsuspecting but good-natured dinner guest, alongside a baked chicken.  The tasting went something like this:

   Guest: It's like Cole Slaw, but better, cause there's this extra creamy, lemony thing.

   Husband: It's creamy, it's lemony, it's got the crunch of Cole Slaw, but it's not watery like Cole Slaw.    
   It's so creamy and delicious! (several "mmm's" follow this on the recording)

   Guest: I want this on my barbecue sandwiches from now on instead of regular Cole Slaw.

   Husband: Try it with the chicken, it goes great with the chicken.

   Guest: It is very good with the chicken.

I think I can claim success, and to think that even I was scoffing at this one.  But it works wonderfully, and this is coming from someone who doesn't even really like regular Cole Slaw at all.  Try it, ladies, at your next backyard party, and I bet you'll be the talk of the neighborhood!

Our Rating: Zero screaming husbands!

(all dishes are rated from one to five Screaming Husbands. One Screaming Husband equals a happy home where all problems are solved during cocktail hour. Five Screaming Husbands signals the beginning of divorce proceedings.)

Egg Balls

Egg Balls
submitted by Mrs. Charles Waring
Charleston Receipts p. 27

I'm sure there's a "which-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg" joke in here somewhere, but it's not coming to me.

As mentioned last time, a recent jaunt through Pilot Mountain, NC, snagged me a 1950 copy of "Charleston Receipts", still available in a recent edition on Amazon, if you're interested. With treats like the above, as well as "Mrs. Alston Pringle's Calf's Head Soup", "Hog's Head Cheese", and "Ham Paste", how could you resist?

As to the book's title, my crack Googling skills tell me that receipt and recipe both derive from the Latin recipere, "to receive or take". Receipt was first used in medieval English as a formula or prescription for a medicinal preparation (Chaucer is the first known user, in the Canterbury Tales of about 1386). The sense of “a written statement saying that money or goods have been received” only arrived at the beginning of the seventeenth century.

Recipe is the imperative, "take!", from the same Latin root. It was traditionally the first word in a prescription, heading the list of ingredients. This was often abbreviated to a letter R with a bar through the leg, the origin of the standard "Rx" abbreviation in pharmaceutical circles. Recipe has been used alongside receipt since the eighteenth century in the sense of cookery instructions, gradually replacing it over time. 

It’s by no means entirely defunct even today. It was used on British television, up to the late 1990s, on  Two Fat Ladies, featuring Clarissa Dickson Wright and the late Jennifer Paterson, who invariably spoke of receipts. It is also said with regularity by my mother.

So, on to the Egg Balls.  I had a house full of company when I made them, and, being by now a minor regional celebrity, the prospect of Egg Balls being made caused quite a bit of excitement, as one would imagine, one guest even insisting on observing the creative process from start to finish.

The recipe:

4 eggs

1/2 pound butter

Salt and red pepper

Worcestershire sauce

Celery seed

Bread crumbs

Cream hard boiled eggs with butter. Season to taste with red pepper, Worcestershire sauce and celery seed. Make into balls, put in ice box to set, then roll in rich bread crumbs that have been browned in oven. Equal parts of mashed fish and a few pinches of chopped parsley may be added to creamed eggs and rolled in bread crumbs. Makes 16-18 balls.

A couple of disclaimers: I didn't have celery seed, so I used celery salt. I also used bread crumbs right out of the box, assuming that modern technology had eliminated the need to brown them myself.  

I also opted out of the mashed fish suggestion.

What we thought: My guests, for some strange reason, were over the moon with this dish. (But they're young, they lack the life experience to discern a really fine canapé.) The Egg Balls were so popular, I'm not sure Husband even had a chance to try one. As for me, it's not something I could exactly complain about. They taste like egg on buttered toast, if you took the egg on buttered toast, rolled it into a ball, and stuck it in the freezer for 15 minutes. I suppose 1950's hostesses needed something familiar-tasting-yet-oddly-too-cold to serve to guests in the days before you could buy 1500 pinwheel sandwiches at Sam's Club.

Our Rating: Two screaming husbands

(all dishes are rated from one to five Screaming Husbands. One Screaming Husband equals a happy home where all problems are solved during cocktail hour. Five Screaming Husbands signals the beginning of divorce proceedings.)

Twofer: Bleu Cheese De Luxe Mold w/ Lazy Man's Old-Fashioned

Bleu Cheese De Luxe Mold
Joys of Jell-O page 74
Lazy Man's Old-Fashioned
Contributed  by Samuel Gaillard Stoney
Charleston Receipts page 12

My secret dream of creating a buffalo-chicken-inspired Jell-O mold recipe - oh wait, it's not a secret anymore, is it? - came one step closer this week, with the Joys of Jell-O approved Bleu Cheese De Luxe Mold. I wasn't sure if Bleu Cheese, an essential ingredient in any buffalo chicken-inspired dish, would hold up to gelatinization, but thankfully we can all rest easy on that front.

Auto-correct didn't change "gelatinization", so I'm assuming it's an actual word.

"Joys of Jell-O", uncharacteristically, didn't have an exuberant sentence describing the thrill your guests would get from tasting this dish, opting instead for a flat "This mold is delicious as spread for crackers or apple wedges or as a salad."  Period the end.  Regardless, I was anxious to test the viability of bleu cheese, as well as to use my beautiful new individual  copper molds which I scored for 75 cents each at an antique store in Pilot Mountain, NC, the oft-overlooked neighbor to Mt. Airy, birthplace of Andy Griffith, and the inspiration for TV's Mayberry.  Pilot Mountain is, of course, the inspiration for the frequently-mentioned Mt. Pilot, but today is forgotten by the tourists who flock to Mt. Airy, which has fully embraced its pop culture bonafides. But the real Pilot Mountain after which the town is named cuts an imposing figure on the landscape, and is worth a visit if you're in the area.

Pilot Mountain, North Carolina

Now, for the recipe:
1 3-oz. package Jell-O Lemon Gelatin
1 cup boiling water
1/4 cup cold water
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup crumbled bleu cheese
2 cups finely diced unpeeled red apple (optional)

Dissolve Jell-O Gelatin in boiling water. Add cold water and wine. Then blend in sour cream. Chill until very thick. Stir in cheese and apples. Pour into a 1-quart mold or individual molds. Chill until firm. Unmold on lettuce and serve with crackers or apple wedges.

To the above I took the liberty of adding bacon bits. Because bacon.  And I did use the optional diced apple in the mold.

What we thought: Husband loved this, probably more than anything I've yet made.  I had four individual molds, and offered some to overnight guests who happened to be in town.  One, with a known dislike for all sweets including fruit, didn't care so much for it.  The other loved it.

I myself could have done without the apples.  Once I had a taste of savory, I wanted that taste only, which the apples interfered with. Maybe skip the apples in the mold and follow the suggestion to serve it with apple wedges. Or, maybe forego the bacon, to cut down on the saltiness and not create such a clash of flavors?  Though foregoing bacon is not in my nature.

To accompany the mold, I mixed up a couple of Lazy Man's Old-Fashioneds, from "Charleston Receipts", a copyright 1950 cookbook also scored at the antique shop. The recipe:

1 tsp. orange marmalade
3 dashes angostura bitters
1 finger light rum or whiskey
crushed ice to fill glass

Stir until it tastes right; add spirits, if necessary, to the result.

You can see in the photo that I veered from the instructions; I used two fingers of bourbon, and shook the concoction with ice so it could be served in a martini glass.  I also used cranberry-orange marmalade, because it's what I had in the fridge. I'm not going to rate the drink, because it's a drink. What's not to like?

Our Rating: Zero screaming husbands

(all dishes are rated from one to five Screaming Husbands. One Screaming Husband equals a happy home where all problems are solved during cocktail hour. Five Screaming Husbands signals the beginning of divorce proceedings.)

Mock Guacamole

Mock Guacamole
submitted by Janet Seal, location unknown
compiled by Linda Taylor

How fondly I remember my childhood in the sun-dappled fields south of San Luis Obispo, when we children would pluck artichokes fresh from the stalk, and Maria (our kindly maid) would make us her homemade hollandaise to dip the fresh-steamed leaves in.  When mother and father returned from solving their most recent murder mystery...

...oh wait, that was my pretend tv family, not my actual family.

My actual family, in the suburbs west of Columbus, Ohio, DID have hollandaise, but mock hollandaise - mayonnaise, lemon juice and garlic powder, microwaved into a yellowish blob of goo with the viscosity of shaving cream.  Still, pretty close to the taste of actual hollandaise with less than half the effort of making it.

Which led me to believe, naturally, that any foodstuff with "mock" preceding it was supposed to approximate the taste of the food it was mocking. Spoiler alert in case you don't want to read to the end:  I was wrong.

A recent second-hand store find was the colorful binder pictured below, titled "Linda Taylor's Recipes" on the front, and full of hand-written and newspaper-clipped recipes lovingly pasted, scrapbook-style, onto pieces of notebook paper.

Mock Guacamole, found only six pages in, perhaps comes from the days before you could find six bushels of avocados languishing in your grocery's produce section, ready for purchase year-round.  It also seems to be a dietetic alternative to real avocados, before we knew that some sorts of fat were good for you (though, as it appears on the same page as bacon-wrapped scallops, I'm not sure that's what Linda Taylor had in mind).

At any rate, it's horrific.

Here's the recipe:

2 (10 1/2-ounce) cans cut asparagus, drained.
1 cup finely chopped tomato
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon reduced-calorie mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon hot sauce

Position knife blade in food processor bowl; add asparagus. Process until smooth; transfer to a mixing bowl. Stir in tomato and remaining ingredients. Place mixture in a paper towel-lined wire-mesh strainer or colander, and let drain 1 hour. Cover and chill at least 3 hours. Serve with baked tostito chips, instead of fried.

Don't get me wrong, I love asparagus. Fresh, preferably, but I'm not opposed to canned if it's all that's available.  But let me tell you something, there is NO WAY to process asparagus until "smooth". It's stringy and slimy and lumpy, and to make it smooth would defy the laws of physics.

Already suspicious by the texture of the pureed asparagus, and skeptical of the upcoming instruction to drain in a paper towel-lined colander, I threw caution to the wind and went ahead and used real full-fat mayonnaise. It didn't help.

What we thought: Husband wouldn't touch it, leaving me to taste-test it myself.

It's canned asparagus run through a food processor. That's exactly what it tastes like. Horrible. This is coming from someone who's eaten Banana Salmon Salad and Ring-Around-The-Tuna. Don't make this, even as a dare.

Our Rating: I don't know...what's the rating when Husband won't even try it?

(all dishes are rated from one to five Screaming Husbands. One Screaming Husband equals a happy home where all problems are solved during cocktail hour. Five Screaming Husbands signals the beginning of divorce proceedings.)

Avocado Strawberry Ring

Avocado Strawberry Ring
"It's a delight to serve a light green and vivid red delicacy."
Joys of Jell-O, p. 41

Surely you'll have noticed by now that it's not a ring at all.  Which can be easily explained by my hurry in trying to get this ready to actually take to a neighborhood gathering. Aren't I the daring young thing?

Reading the recipe in print, it seemed like sort of an unusual combination to me, but an acquaintance I was talking about it with nonchalantly reported that she used to eat avocados and strawberries laced with balsamic vinegar quite frequently as a child.

As for me, I never even heard of avocados until about 1986, long past my childhood.  Maybe I was just sheltered, for I've come across more than a few mid-century recipes calling for them, and my crack Googling skills tell me that using them in sweet dishes isn't all that unusual at all.

The recipe:

1 package Jell-O Lemon or Lemon-Lime Gelatin (I used Lemon - do they even make Lemon-Lime anymore?)

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup boiling water

3/4 cup cold water

1 tbsp. lemon juice

3 tbsp. mayonnaise

1 avocado, pared and mashed

1 pint fresh strawberries (or use 2 packages [10 oz. each] Birds Eye Strawberry Halves, thawed and drained)

Dissolve Jell-O gelatin and salt in boiling water. Add cold water and lemon juice. Chill until slightly thickened. Stir in mayonnaise and avocado, blending well. Pour into a 3- or 4-cup ring mold or individual ring molds. Chill until firm. Unmold and fill center of ring with berries. Makes about 2 1/2 cups gelatin, or 5 servings.

As mentioned above, I was in a hurry, so I did the first chilling in the freezer, which may have been a mistake as it got a little too firm before adding the mayo and avocado.  The finished product was a little lumpy as a result, not the shimmering sea-foam green delight promised by the Joys of Jell-O photo illustration. I only have one ring mold, and I'm not sure the recipe as printed would have made enough to adequately fill it, another reason I chose the loaf pan shape.  

I am also excessively proud of my decorative skills, which looked better in real life than the picture above would lead you to believe.

What we thought: I took this dish to game night at the neighbor's, not knowing that the hostess has a known distaste for avocado. Nonetheless, she gamely took a taste, and then she and her other guests set about guessing what was in it (Husband was on his way, but hadn't arrived yet).

Surprisingly (to me, at least) the avocado adds a creaminess to the sweetness of the lemon Jell-O /strawberry combination somewhat like a cheesecake base.

"Creamy, refreshing and cool" is what husband had to say when he arrived.

I am a convert. I'll probably try this again, or at least try combining avocado with a fruit salad.

Our Rating: Zero Screaming Husbands!

(all dishes are rated from one to five Screaming Husbands. One Screaming Husband equals a happy home where all problems are solved during cocktail hour. Five Screaming Husbands signals the beginning of divorce proceedings.)

Special Edition: Bone Appetit!

Well, I've taken it into my head to create my own molded food recipes. Imagine, me, a molded food cook!

I wanted to start with something, though, that wasn't too difficult to make, and would be sure to be eaten without complaint.  So I decided to make something tempting for the Dogs.

Now, I'm not one to spoil my dogs, unless you count brushing their teeth every night, or buying a bigger bed so that they could sleep with husband and me, or planning entire vacations around the availability of favorite dog-sitters.

But, they do enjoy the occasional break from canned food (albeit the highest quality canned food) so, after ensuring that gelatin was indeed non-toxic to dogs, I set about creating the following recipe.

I used a basic aspic recipe as the template. I'm not entirely happy with the beef broth, because of the sodium, so maybe next time I'll just use the boiling water from the chicken.

So, here's the recipe:

1 envelope Knox unflavored gelatin
1 3/4 cups low-sodium beef broth, divided
1 chicken breast or thigh, boiled and diced
2 large carrots, cooked and diced
1 apple, peeled and diced

Sprinkle gelatin on 1/2 cup of the beef broth to soften. Place over low heat and stir until gelatin is dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in remaining 1 1/4 cups of broth.

Pour 1/2 inch layer of broth mixture into a rectangular mold.  Chill until firm.

Meanwhile, boil chicken and carrots together in unsalted water. Simmer until chicken is cooked.  Dice chicken and carrots.

Artfully arrange diced chicken and carrots atop layer of firmed gelatin. Top with diced apple.  Pour remainder of gelatin into mold and chill until firm.

Unmold on serving plate and garnish with kibble, if desired.

The Dogs had already had their evening meal, so I just gave each of them a small sample to try.

What they thought:

They also each had a larger serving for breakfast next morning, with similar enthusiastic results. I'd say that the recipe makes about 8 meal-sized servings for a 20-40 pound dog, more if you're using for treat purposes only.

Our Rating: Zero Whining Dogs!