7-Up Salad

“When I told her I would bring a fruit salad of sorts, I didn’t tell her that it would look like head-cheese.”

No proper mold - so I used a bowl.
On its way out of the bowl onto the plate,
it hit my tummy, and bounced onto the plate.
No harm was done!

I’m not sure how I happened across this website - *Mid*Century*Menu* and it’s recipe for Ginger Ale Salad – but you can imagine my surprise when I saw this rather pale jellied number. It was less than a week from when I was to go to a friend’s for breakfast. The timing couldn’t have been better. The breakfast couldn’t have been better. And the salad was a nice bit of weird fun to bring along.

I substituted a few items, but for the most part, it’s the same recipe – less the ginger. (I just didn’t have any on hand.)

7-Up Salad

2 envelopes of unflavoured gelatin

8 tbsp cold water

½ cup boiling fruit juice (the juice from the canned pineapple can be used)

Enjoying a slice of leftover salad. 

½ cup sugar

1/8 tsp salt

2 cups 7-up

Juice of one small lemon

1 ½ cups globe grapes, sliced in quarters (I’d get a seedless variety if I were doing this again. I *thought* globe grapes were seedless.)

1 orange, peeled and roughly chopped

1 pink grapefruit, peeled and roughly chopped

Soak gelatin in cold water until it blooms. (I had no idea what “blooms” meant – and was surprised to see that it looked more like half-melted butter when I went back to look, 10 minutes later.)

Add sugar to the boiling fruit juice and stir until mostly dissolved, then add the bloomed gelatin to this mixture – stir again until the gelatin is dissolved.

Add salt, 7-Up, and lemon juice. Stir lightly to avoid losing the carbonation in the 7-Up. Chill until partially set. (About 20-40 minutes.)

Add fruit to partially set gelatin. Pour into a 5-cup gelatin mold. Refrigerate until firm.

Enjoy!