The 12 Weeks of Christmas: Christmas Movie Edition-Week 2

The 12 Weeks of Christmas: Christmas Movie Edition-Week 2

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

This week's movie has some fun food options to choose from, the most infamous being, of course, a year subscription to the jelly-of-the-month club. I was not about to make jelly, though, because I don't have the set up or knowledge to do canning. So I studied the rest of the foods from the Christmas Eve meal, and focused on Aunt Bethany's Jell-O mold. The one with the cat food on top...My grandmother made a lime Jell-O every major holiday for the family, and as I was looking through my recipes, I came across one from her step-mother that I had never tried before, and decided to try that out for this week's recipe.

My grandmother and her family were Canadian, and my sister and I recently got our Canadian citizenship sorted out. As tomorrow is Thanksgiving there, I thought it was an extra appropriate time to try this recipe. Since I have to work tomorrow, it'll make me feel like I'm celebrating the holiday early. 

Here is the recipe:

This is one of those very stereotypical Jell-O salads from the 1960's so popular with white families in the US and Canada. It's ok to admit it. If you're white, you have likely encountered a salad like this. 

I had the carrots leftover from last week's meatloaf, and thought it would be a good way to use them up. Keep in mind, that the smallest can of crushed pineapple you can find in the stores these days, is 8 ounces, not 2. I used an 8 ounce can, and found it worked just fine. I kept the recipe exactly the same otherwise, though I only did a few grinds of salt, as I thought it sounded like too much salt for my tastes.

Here we have our picture of all the ingredients. Complete with not only whipped topping, but store-brand whipped topping! I had it in the freezer to use up for something, so it was perfect to use.

Action shot! I drained as much of the pineapple juice I could and then did water for the rest. Because it was an 8oz can, it was more juice then it called for. I was concerned that the enzymes in the pineapple juice might affect the gelling ability of the Jell-O, but it worked just fine.

Here we have the post-Jell-O shot. It brings it out of a boil immediately, so turn up the heat a bit more to bring it back.

I poured the liquid into a bowl and chilled it for about a half hour before it was thickened enough to add the rest of the ingredients. Pineapple and grated carrots makes this almost a Jell-O version of carrot cake, if you think about it!

And the exciting addition of the whipped topping. It does thin out quite a bit in this step. I was sure it wouldn't thicken properly.

I poked holes in two pieces of plastic wrap and put them across the Bundt pan so that the mold wouldn't get stuck in it. I highly recommend doing this because it would be really hard to get this out in one piece, otherwise. 

The plastic wrap does make the outside look a bit wonky, but it's still worth it to get it out in one piece. Also, as you can see, this did firm up after all!

Here's the interior of the salad. It's pretty monochromatic.

Here's a serving. It's pretty sweet so a little goes a long way. The flavor wasn't half bad. I wasn't too wild about the random crunchy carrot shreds, it sort of ruined the texture. The pineapple was good, it's soft so it just blended into the rest of it.

Well, I can't say this recipe made a Jell-O salad fan out of me. I think I grew up in a time when that type of food was no longer en vogue, so it's just not my thing, but I can see how somebody who grew up on this type of dish would really enjoy it. I had a box of strawberry Jell-O and almost tried it with this, but decided to go with the lemon anyway. I bet it would be good with strawberry and maybe leaving out the carrot. Strawberry and pineapple is a delicious pairing. I also don't know if the 1/2 cup of sugar did anything structurally for the salad or if it just made it needlessly sweeter. Maybe I'd try it again without that as well. Maybe it was for if you used plain whipped cream? To add that sweetness. I bet that was it...

I think Aunt Bethany would be very proud of this salad, and I bet she'd gift-wrap it for her family for next Christmas Eve!