Showing posts with label strawberry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label strawberry. Show all posts

Saturday, December 17, 2022

Glady's Harcourt's Strawberry Jello Salad


Trust me, this is the best gelatin salad I have ever had! My friends' Mom would made the most creative and beautiful side dishes. She was the first to introduce me to the concept of a "layered salad." This strawberry jello salad can easily serve as a dessert. I hope to try to make it with fat free sour cream or fat free Greek yogurt.

Note: use only canned pineapple as it will not set up with frozen or fresh pineapple


3 packages strawberry jello

2 mashed bananas

1 pkg (10 oz) frozen strawberries

1 can crushed pineapple NOT drained

1 carton of sour cream


Dissolve jello in 2 cups of boiling water. Add bananas, pineapple & strawberries.

Pour half the mixture into a pan. 

Chill until firm.

Spread sour cream over the top.

Add remaining jello mixture.



Photo of the salad coming soon.


Saturday, April 5, 2014

Pineapple, Lemon, Raspberry, Surprise Cake


I received a surprise from my beautiful niece Julie who lives in Texas. She sent me a thank you bouquet of flowers. Since it remains cold in Cleveland, Ohio, and we might have a few lingering snow flurries, the flowers are a most welcome sign of "life" after winter.

The flowers look gorgeous on the table. I doubt if Julie knew that we had our 46th wedding anniversary a week ago, but we did not have a cake. The colors of the flowers in this beautiful bouquet are the inspiration for this pineapple, lemon, raspberry, surprise angel food cake!




But the question is why did I add the word "surprise" in the name of this Pineapple, Lemon, Raspberry "Surprise" cake?

One can see the raspberries on the outside of the cake and if one cuts into the cake, there is a layer of fluffy frosting with a few raspberries as a "surprise." I had cut into, but not through the unfrosted, cooled cake and placed some frosting and a raspberry surprise in what I determined would be a generous piece of angel food cake. I did not cut completely through the cake, I went around the outside of the cake with a knife, without cutting the cake completely into two layers as this particular angel food cake is very delicate and crumbly.


The cake was made with a box of angel food cake mix, but crushed pineapple was added in lieu of the 1 1/4 cups water indicated in the directions for preparing the cake. In addition, because I love the aroma of lemon, I added 3 tablespoons of lemon juice to the cake and to the frosting.

The frosting is Betty Crocker Fluffy Frosting, which contains no fat. Since I had a large can of crushed pineapple, I had pineapple left from making the cake batter, which only required the 1 1/4 cups.

The Betty Crocker Fluffy Frosting mix is to be mixed with 1/2 cup boiling water. Instead of water I used 3 tablespoons of lemon juice plus some of the remaining crushed pineapple to bring the liquid portion to 1/2 cup and heated it to boiling in the microwave.

I beat the frosting for the required 30 seconds on low and 5-7 minutes on high, and stiff peaks formed at about 6 minutes. It was amazing that the frosting turned from a bit of yellow from the pineapple to almost a pure white.

I frosted the cake quickly as want this cake to look like a fresh, homemade cake, it need not be perfect and the frosting is delicious!

My husband suggested I turn this into a pina colada angel food cake by adding coconut to the frosted cake, but I may try this another time!

Wish I could share this wonderful and very easy-to-make, tasty angel food cake with my Texas family!
I wish I could drop it off at their door!

Please note: any crushed fruit plus liquid can be added to the batter of an angel food cake in lieu of the water indicated in the directions. When my nephew said his favorite cake was "strawberry," I substituted fresh strawberry puree in the cake. I had made the strawberry puree from fresh berries in my blender and the baked cake retained a light pink color.

If my niece has room in her new garden, I can imagine planting a real lemon tree in the backyard!

Love to Julie for inspiring me to bake a cake today for my upcoming cookbook! How I wish I could send a piece over to my great-niece, Emma Louise! I will be working on creating the healthiest cupcakes for Emma, a true cupcake lover.

You can bet that Emma's cupcakes will always have a "surprise" inside!


Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Perch and Fresh Asparagus, My Favorites!

My favorite fish is Ocean Perch, which is on sale this time of year, along with fresh asparagus!

I wash the perch, dip in flour, spray a pan with cooking spray and add a bit of oil to barely coat the pan and "fry" the perch, skin side up -- I hope I have this correct -- that the skin side is up when first cooking the perch,k as if the wrong side is down, the pieces curl and are nearly impossible to cook evenly! If I forget which end is to be up, I cook one piece in the pan to double check! I like to get a brown coating on one side before turning the delicate fish. Just before placing the fish in the pan, I rub dried dill between my palms and sprinkle it on the coated fish. I add dill to the flour coating too. The reason I use flour for perch rather than corn meal or some other coating, is that I want a very delicate covering of the lovely perch. I love to see the petals of the fish, but always watch out for those tiny bones which usually find themselves on my husband's pieces of perch!

Perch is probably my favorite fish as living near Lake Erie, we ate it much as children, however, my mother would fry it to perfection. Frying is no longer a cooking option for us, but spraying the pan and adding a bit of oil to coat, gives us the illusion of fried perch, my very favorite fish. Add a Yukon gold potato  plain, without anything on it, allows us to justify the bit of fat in the fish, and the yellow color of the potato makes it look like it is full of yummy butter (not in our normal meal plan, but allowed at weddings and special occasions). I try to cook the asparagus until just barely tender as my husband dislikes what he calls "al dente" vegetables -- he likes his vegetables as if they came out of a can or are cooked to the state of mushiness! I much prefer a bit of a bite and the beautiful color of a slightly "al dente" vegetable, but love to eat them raw too!

The first time I had raw asparagus in a mixed salad was at the home of a friend's mother. My friend's mother lives in Maineville, Ohio, and would grow her asparagus and serve it freshly picked in a salad, literally having the "just picked goodness" of a homegrown vegetable.

I am thinking much of my friend's Mom and hope she is feeling better after some courageous surgery! Were the weather better, we would be visiting my friend's mother and enjoying the visit with her in her most incredible garden!

I don't usually garnish our plates with strawberries, but aromatic ones are on sale this week and having spent the weekend in Chicago at a fabulous wedding has influenced my simple meals for our homecoming!The perch is sitting on a bed of fresh arugula which I can not wait to grow again in my garden. My Mom planted arugula every year and baby arugula reminds me of a lunch my youngest sister and I had with my graduate school adviser, a friend for over 45 years, who took us for a beautiful lunch at The Tavern on the Green in Central Park (sadly, The Tavern is now closed), where we had baby arugula salads!

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Snow, Snow, and More Snow

Wow, what a winter! My husband keeps reminding me of what the weather is like in Hawaii, thus, I think I better come up with food to warm us up today and give us a bit of a feeling like   .  .   . catching a wave?

The photos of Hawaii look so heavenly, maybe I should make an angel food cake for my birthday this week?

Maybe a pineapple angel food cake? I made a strawberry angel food cake when my Texas nephew requested a "strawberry" cake, on his visit to Cleveland in 2011. I substituted the water required in an angel food cake mix with pureed strawberries --- the cake had a light pink color and tasted yummy.

Angel food cake made with a can of crushed pineapple is wonderful, just dump the entire can plus liquid (natural juice) into the mix as the exchange for the water designated on the box of the cake mix.

My great-niece loves "purple" and blueberries -- for Emma, I would take a box of angel food cake mix, instead of water I would use pureed blueberries, and drop the batter into cupcake tins!

I bet one could use puree from any fruit from apples to mango -- as a substitute for the required liquid in cake mix for angle food cake. I used to make angle food cake from scratch - using many egg whites, but why bother per the convenience, quality, and fluffiness of an angel food cake mix can not be beat -- just make sure your mixer is in working condition on the highest speed!

As Ina would say "How simple is that?"

Emma loves cupcakes, don't we all?  Two year-old Emma would say, "O.K.!"