Thursday, April 1, 2010

My Easter Menu

Hey All,
Just thought I'd share my Easter menu along with a couple of recipes.

Crunchy Hot Chicken Salad
Blueberry Congealed Salad
Green Bean Bundles
Sister Shubert Rolls

They say "congealed" here in the south rather than "jello" like we do. My girls think there's something slightly "yukky" about the word congealed that makes it less appetizing. But by any name, it's good. I can count on one hand the number of times I've made a jello salad in 39 years of marriage. I'm completely intimidated by them. I was going to do the strawberry pretzel salad, but the recipe I have did not turn out for me---once---about 10 years ago. My friends gave me another recipe for it that is slightly different, but I haven't tried it. I've had a jello salad on every holiday menu for at least the last 5 years and have "chickened" out at the last minute. Since I'm serving chicken, I'm not going to let myself talk "me" out of it this time!!!

This is a variation of a recipe that I've had since the 1970's. My friend, Pam served this recently and it was easier than my old recipe. I've added a few things to her recipe to make it a little more similar to my old recipe without the additional work. Enjoy!

Crunchy Hot Chicken Salad
3 cups diced, cooked chicken
1 cup chopped celery
2 T. lemon juice
3 T. chopped onion (I chopped about a half of a medium size onion - didn't measure)
1/2 c. sliced almonds
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/2 c. water chestnuts (I used sliced but sliced them again like the almonds)
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup sour cream
3 hard boiled eggs, sliced
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 cups crushed potato chips

Preheat oven to 325. Mix first 10 ingredients. Gently fold in eggs and place mixture in a lightly greased 9 x 13 baking dish.
Top with cheese & crushed potato chips. Bake about 30 minutes or until bubbly.

Blueberry Congealed Salad
2 small grape jello
2 cups boiling water
1 can crushed pineapple
1 can blueberry pie filling

Mix boiling water with jello until dissolved. Add pineapple and pie filling. Pour in a 9x13 dish and refrigerate until congealed.

Topping:
8 oz. cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
8 oz. sour cream
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Mixed softened cream cheese with sour cream and sugar until blended. Fold in nuts. Spread over jello. Best if prepared the night before.

Enjoy and let me know what you're serving this Easter! Have a good one!




4 comments:

  1. Sounds yummy, Mom! I'm making my traditional Easter brunch this year, but am changing it up just a little. I'm making Sausage & Egg Casserole, Hash Brown Casserole, Zucchini Bread, and the Strawberry Pretzel Jello Salad (I'll have to let you know if it turns out). And for dessert, I'm trying a new cake recipe...Mountain Dew Cake. I wanted to make a quiche this year because I've never made one, but my family complained and insisted on the Sausage & Egg Casserole that we always have. You know how we are about tradition! We'll be coloring eggs on Saturday so we'll have hard boiled eggs too. I'll probably just make an egg salad with those that we can eat later in the day. I'm really excited about Easter this year because our weather is supposed to be nice. We'll be able to do our egg hunt outside for once. I'm a little sad though because Mitchell has decided that he's too old to hunt for eggs now. I told him that there was money in some of the eggs, but he still said he wasn't hunting. Just another sign that my little boy isn't so little any more. I think I'll put him in charge of hiding the eggs so he'll still be a part of the hunt, but just in a different way. He did make sure that I knew he was NOT too old to get a basket from the Easter Bunny though!!

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  2. Your recipes sound good & I've printed them for my use but changed congealed to jello. We're going to Matt & Sharon's and I'm bringing the Pasta House salad & a very good & easy coconut cake:

    yellow cake made in 13X9 pan
    while hot from the oven pour these over:
    1 can condensed milk
    1/2 can cream of coconut (by drink mixes at store)
    & shredded coconut

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  3. Yummy! I can't wait till Sunday. I'll be making a Lemon-Raspberry cake a Betty Crocker recipe that I want to try out.

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  4. Sounds good. I will be making my traditional - wait - I don't cook! I will be EATING my mom's delicious menu!! Sandy - I did a hunt for the girls this year (and our traditional egg dying contest). I was worried they were too old, but I made it a surprise and they were thrilled. The first question "Can we run?"! So clearly one is never too old to have an egg hunt. Where you're trouble lies is in the fact that Mitchell has to hunt with the little girls. He would probably be fine hunting with my girls! And my hunt had great prizes besides candy, so that actually took the place of baskets for me this year. They'll still get a basket from their dad, though, so they're not hurting. Happy Easter!

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