What We Cook: Apple Cider Salad ~ page 59

Our Cookbook Blog

Our Cookbook ~ What We Cook, is a compilation of every recipe we (Janice and Carissa) cook - recipes from our cookbook collections, our recipe boxes, and our heads! We set up this blog for friends and family who have our cookbook to let them see pictures we post of the recipes in the book, and also for us to note any corrections, revisions, or additions to What We Cook. We encourage people who are cooking our recipes to let us know how the recipes turn out and any suggestions they might want to make.

In addition, we will be sharing some of our new recipes (along with pictures) that are not in our cookbook. We hope you will help us out and test recipes and give us your comments.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Apple Cider Salad ~ page 59

This "salad" can double as a light dessert, a morning breakfast, a healthy snack...it fits just about anywhere in your day! The fresh simplicity of this is what makes it so delightful. But forget about artificially brightly colored Jello salads--this is just the natural color of fresh apple cider, so the color is not going to wow you, but I promise you, the flavor will!

I only make this salad in the fall, because that seems to be the only time I can find fresh apple cider in the graocery store. Good cider is crucial to this recipe. Basically, this is fresh, bright, tangy apple cider with unflavored gelatin added to make it set up and form a base for crisp apple dices and chopped walnuts.

Unflavored gelatin is dissolved in a small amount of warm cider. Just a touch of sugar sweetens it up, and some fresh lemon juice brightens the flavor.

The gelatin is then refrigerated for 1 1/2 hours or so, to barely set up.

Then apples and walnuts are stirred in--then back in the fridge it goes.

You can eat this in a couple more hours for a soft-set, or wait till the next day for a firmer gelatin salad. This will last for several days in the refrigerator--if you restrain yourself from eating it all the first day...