Joan’s Cottage Cheese Pineapple Lime Salad Mold

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by Deborah Taylor-Hough

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This Sunday is Easter, and in honor of my mom, I’m sharing her special holiday recipe.  Mom’s holiday salad mold lives on in the family, and my dad still prepares it every year for our family’s Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.  If there’s not at least a small scoop of this on my plate, it just doesn’t quite feel like a holiday meal.  It’s been in the family for at least 50 years.  A real blast from the past.  🙂

This recipe’s official name is “Pacific Lime Mold.”  Why Pacific?  Maybe because there was pineapple added to it?  It was created around the time period when Hawaii became a state, so maybe it was a nod to the islands?  I remember that I just called it “Mom’s Jello Thing.”  Other people in the family called it Joan’s Jello.

I suspect a lot of families had something similar appear on their family dinner tables back in the heyday of Jello recipes and aspics.  I sometimes think our moms and grandmoms all used the very same recipe booklets from the major food manufacturers.  Everyone seemed to make the same perennial goodies —  things like Green Bean Casserole with Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup, for example.

So without further ado, here’s the recipe for Mom’s jello thing.

Joan’s Cottage Cheese Pineapple Lime Salad Mold

Ingredients:

• 1 cup boiling water
• 1 small package lime flavored Jello
• 1  9-oz can crushed pineapple (reserving juice)
• 1 cup creamy cottage cheese
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise (or salad dressing)
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts (or pecans)

Instructions:

1. In a large bowl, dissolve jello in boiling water, and stir in juice from pineapple.
2. Chill in refrigerator until slightly thickened.
3. Remove from refrigerator and beat until frothy.
4. Fold in remaining ingredients.
5. Pour into serving bowl or festive gelatin mold.
6. Chill until set.
7. Serve cold.

 

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