Cranberry Salad

In the South, we can't just dish up cranberry sauce & serve it beside our turkey. Oh no, no, no! That would never do! We have to jazz it up and add that all-important Southern ingredient - Jell-o!

Seriously though, this is a delicious recipe. I make it every year and it always wins rave reviews.

Cranberry Salad

1 large or 2 small boxes of strawberry Jell-o
2 cups boiling water
1 cup chopped nuts – Pecans or walnuts
1 large Red Delicious apple – cut into fine pieces
1 cup finely chopped celery
1 can whole berry Cranberry sauce
1 large can crushed pineapple, not drained
2 large oranges, chopped

Dissolve Jell-o in boiling water. Pour into a large bowl. Add other ingredients to Jell-o and mix well. Refrigerate until set.

From the McClure Family Cookbook, page 11

The McClure Family Cookbook

I'm a Georgia girl, born and bred right here in the South. And there are some amazing Southern cooks in my family. Back in the early 1980's, my mother and my aunt recognized the abundance of cooking talent in our extended family (my Grandmother was one of thirteen children) and created the McClure Family Cookbook.

Now mind you, this was in the early 1980's!!!!! There were no slick computer programs that could handle such a task. My mother and my aunt collected recipes from extended family members and typed each and every one of them by hand. No small task for a cookbook that turned out to be 139 pages long! I remember wanting to make a contribution, so I proudly whipped out my Commodore 64 computer (for you computer geeks out there, that's 64k of memory!!!!) and created the cover and the "divider" pages in Print Shop. Ah, memories.

I have cherished this cookbook and still refer to it often, especially during the holidays. This week, I'd like to share some of my favorite Thanksgiving / Christmas season recipes from this cookbook with you. Enjoy!