Jell-o Salad, it's a Minnesota thing

Minnesotan's (and Lutherans) love jell-o salad with holiday meals. I grew up with grape jello that had pears in it and, for some odd reason, the middle of the jello mold was filled with mayo/salad dressing - this was served quite a bit over my younger years by my Protestant and Lutheran family. I always cringed at the mayo. But the grape jell-o with the pears? Oh yum - I know sounds strange, but the two flavors go so well together. I always made sure I got the edge of the jello to avoid the mayo. ;-) 

So, today, I thought I would make my Great Gram Dot Kiser and Grandma Hattie proud and have grape jell-o with the pears. (but no mayo - sorry Grams) with our Easter dinner. They probably rolled over in their graves, as I forgot to take the jell-o out of the fridg before it 'set' to put the pears in. Oops. So, I improvised and cut up the pears into bite size bits and just stirred up the jell-o with the pears (they're not supposed to be cut up, but the halves are to be placed evenly and decoratively around the jello mold). So, it's a lumpy jell-o salad, but sure tastes like it always did ;-) 

But, I am sure that my Lutheran and Protestant relatives, who rolled over in their graves twice, are blaming it on my being a Catholic for 37 years - we don't know the proper way to make jell-o salads cuz you just don't see a jell-o salad at many Catholic church suppers.   

Trust me, it tastes really very good. 

;-)