since someone mentioned adding carrots to jello, I wondered what otheres things you put in it? Since it is relatively inexpensive, and can be made from gelatin and fruit juice as well as the little boxes, I think it is a great cool snack. So please feel free to give us some of your additions that make it taste good!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), January 10, 2002

Answers

Hello Melissa,

Here is something that I thought was cool to do with Jello! You make up a batch of jello and put grapes or blueberries in the bottom of clear cups. Let the jello set until it is partically solidified. Add "little fishes" made by cutting pieces of apple and push them down into the jello. Let the jello finish setting and serve them a edible fishbowls. Pretty cool, huh!

Sincerely,

Ernest

-- http://communities.msn.com/livingoffthelandintheozarks (espresso42@hotmail.com), January 10, 2002.

Hi Colleen's family has a really strange thing that they do with jello. They take lime jello put pears in it. then put marzetti slaw dressing on it. I thing it is the nastiest thing on the table. like pears and lime jello just can't handle the slaw dressing. Take care Rich

-- Rich in G'ville (rdjagers@config.com), January 10, 2002.

Melissa, how do you make it from gelatin and fruit juice? I don't like jell-o maybe would like it that way.

-- Cindy (SE. IN) (atilrthehony@hotmail.com), January 10, 2002.

Drained fruit cocktail, shredded coconut, any sweet fruit bits.

-- mitch hearn (moopups@citlink.net), January 10, 2002.

Cindy the recipe is in the tightwad Gazette, I will look for it in a little while and try to post it this eveing or on the morning! Maybe someone else knows it by heart???

-- Melissa (me@home.net), January 10, 2002.

Hi Rich! This is the first time I have seen you post, glad you de- lurked! I admit the Marzetti dressing sounds a little different, but maybe it is better than it sounds.

-- Melissa (me@home.net), January 10, 2002.

LOL! I don't even make Jello! Now, don't laugh, but just looking at it gives me the shivers! I have no idea why either. When we have a funeral at church, the ladies ask me to make a cake and some jello, I shiver just thinking about it! I try not to look at it much either!

-- Ardie /WI (ardie54965@hotmail.com), January 10, 2002.

Melissa, we can't stomach jello after hauling the "stuff" into the plant that makes jello one time, you have no idea the how the "material" is handled and shipped to the factories that make jello!

We picked up a load of everything that is not "meat or bone" from a cow and it was loaded with a front end loader off the ground onto our open flatbed trailer with sides, mind you, that trailer has had all kinds of greasy and toxic stuff on it at one time or another too, and we hauled it to the jello factory. Was off loaded the same manner as loaded on, in reverse, including the part about setting on the ground, outside, in the open, to the delite of the many, many flies present. One end of the jello factory smelled gosh awful nasty, the other end where the finished product was, smelled divine!!!

Hint, hot dogs are made in a very similair fashion, and DH, who still eats meat, won't eat those things either anymore!!! Truck drivers really know the "dirt" on how our food is handled and manufactured.

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), January 10, 2002.

A nice salad is cubes of cooked pickled beetroot set in blackcurrent jelly (wobbly set geletine) It has a really yummy delicate flavour.

Alison

-- Alison Homa (alisonhoma@hotmail.com), January 10, 2002.

sliced bannanas in strawberry jello. Better if the bannanas are still a bit green, unripened.

mandrin oranges in orange jello.

-- Dave (something@somewhere.com), January 10, 2002.

I haven't done it for years but when the kids were home and we had ice cream get "old", you know with the ice crystals on it, I'd throw some, never measured, into the Jell-O while it was still warm and used the mixer to beat it good. Poured it in bowls and used it as a dessert with a slice of cake or something. It was usually vanilla but, of course, orange sherbet would be good with orange Jell-O or lime sherbet with lime Jell-O, etc. I would assume you could add fruit to it also but I never did.

-- Anna in Iowa (countryanna54@hotmail.com), January 10, 2002.

Vell, I fer von yust love yello! Its da Minniesoda salad dontchaknow. All da Lu'tern ladies make yello for da annual Lutefisk and Svee-dish meatball supper dat is served down dare in da church basement. I tink Mrs. Yawnson makes da best yello--green wid fruit cocktail. Of courses, Ole Larson's wife makes a goot orange von wid shreded carrots. Ya, dats a goo von, by golly. Ya know, at da last church basement potluck, I counted twenty-tree different yellos and more den turdy different hotdishes, U bettcha! Oh ya, yust a verd of vorning, dontcha put da yello tew close to da hotdish or mashed potatoes uddervise yew'll end up wid fruit soup! --Happy trails, Cabin Fever

-- Cabin Fever (cabinfever_mn@yahoo.com), January 10, 2002.

Frozen strawberries and strawberry yogurt.

-- Jean (schiszik@tbcnet.com), January 10, 2002.

We were given one of those copper fish gelatin molds for a wedding present. Joy of Cooking has recipes for molded fish salads so I figured, WHY NOT? I've done some experimenting and not always so successful. Dear spouse has forbidden me from ever making fish jello for a potluck again. Just too weird for him! He wouldn't even try the green jello with red snapper, green chilies and cilentro

My favorite was mixed seafood and yellow jello.

To get things to stick to the mold, you first coat it with a layer of jello and refridgerate for a few minutes. Then I dipped slices of celery in liquid jello and stuck them in the mold like the were fish scales. Tails and fins were long slivers of green peppers and celery leaves, and gills were red pepper slices. The eyes were green olives. then let it chill for a few minutes while you do the rest.

I separated the remaining jello into two parts. One part, I added mixed seafood, crab, shrimp, cooked halabut. I spooned this mix into the mold and let it chill for about a half hour.

The second part of the yellow jello, I beat in cream cheese, a bit of tartar sauce and dill pickle relish. I filled the rest of the mold with this mix and stuck it in the fridge overnight.

The flavor can be changed replacing the tartar sauce and pickle relish with tarragon and white wine.

When I unmolded this thing, it was the most...awesome (or gruesome as Hubby said) piece of food art! I thought it tasted pretty good. Everyone who was brave enough to try it also had seconds on it, so I guess they thought it was good.

Cabin Fever, you have given me a challenge. I must find lutefisk so I can make Norwegian Jello. Too bad! The news said we had a shortage of lutefisk in our state this year. Perhaps I will plan this for next Christmas Eve. My next attempt will be smoke salmon and cream chese.

Ardie, I have a kid who was terrified of jello when she was little, even before the fish. She didn't like food that moved. She screamed when I gave her jigglers.

-- Laura (Ladybugwrangler@hotmail.com), January 10, 2002.

The ice cream idea sounds do-able, think I'll skip the fish one though!!!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), January 10, 2002.

Here is the recipe from unflavored gelatin, taken form the tightwad Gazette II. There is a whole article with other ways she makes it, in the blender etc... so if you get a chance to read it you might be interested.

Simply add 1 TBS of unflavored gelatin (cheaper if bought in bulk)to 1 cup boiling liquid (any kind of fruit juice)

Dissolve the gelatin, then add 1 cup cold fruit juice.

You will probably have to experiment a litle.

For "jiggler" type snacks for kids, use the same method, but add 2 TBS gelatin instead.

-- Melissa (me@home.net), January 11, 2002.

When I was a kid my mom always put carrots in orange jello, I think I thought that was the only way it came. She also put pears and cottage cheese in lime jello, yech. I still can't stand lime jello.

I like jello plain most of the time. Add a tiny dab of cool whip and it's dessert. My favorite jellos are those with almost any fruit in them, strawberries or bananas in strawberry jello, raspberries in raspberry jello, etc.

Or instead of adding things to the jello, you can add jello to other things....my family loves the "poke" cakes where you poke holes in a cake and pour jello over it, then chill, and frost with an instant pudding/Dream Whip frosting. (No, I don't make them very often.)

-- Lenette (kigervixen@webtv.net), January 11, 2002.

We rarely have jello -- if I eat it at all, I want bananas in it, but I guess Lance had never seen jello with fruit -- he just turns up his nose! If it's not just plain, he's not interested!

My nephew loves a salad we call "orange stuff" -- it has a real name, but no one in my family can remember what it is! We just always make "orange stuff" for Jason when we have a big family dinner or he fusses!

You take an 8 ounce container of cool whip, a 16 ounce container of cottage cheese, a small package of orange jello, and a can of mandaring oranges (drained), and mix it all together, then chill for about 30 minutes! Dis-gustin'! By the way, you can do it with maraschino cherries and cherry jello, or frozen strawberries and strawberry jello, etc.

-- Christine in OK (cljford@mmcable.com), January 12, 2002.

Lemon-Lime Soda, any brand, substituted for all of the cold water. Let the hot jello cool a bit before you add it. I think even just plain fizzy water would work as well (and not be as sweet).

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), January 12, 2002.

This site even has alcoholic jello recipes (I wonder if you could substitute agar-agar (think petri dishes in high school) if you don't want to deal with gelatin?). I'm sure one of the resident vegans would know.

http://www.boston-baden.com/hazel/Jello/jello.html

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), January 12, 2002.