Cherry Gelatin Salad

Recently for my birthday, we invited friends to dinner to help us celebrate and I prepared some of my favorite recipes. Our guests generously brought a fresh vegetable salad, not the salad you see pictured here, and some dinner rolls. My husband bought me a beautiful and delicious birthday cake to end our meal on a very festive note.

The Cherry Gelatin Salad that I made is a favorite from my childhood that comes with very fond memories of wonderful family times together. This recipe comes from my great-aunt via a church cookbook from Iowa. I really do not know how old this recipe might be but, I do know that I have never seen this recipe printed anywhere other than in our families recipe files. The salad is beautiful on the plate, delicious and simple to prepare; perfect for potlucks and special occasions, very kid-friendly.

I served Baked Orange Chicken, recipe posted on 3/31/2010, and Party Rice and Noodles, recipe posted on 4/11/2014 for this dinner. Blessings...

Recipe:

1 6-oz. pkg. cherry gelatin
3 cups boiling water
1 can cherry pie filling
1 3-oz. pkg. cream cheese
20 large marshmallows
1 pkg. Dream Whip (from a 2-pkg. box)
chopped pecans, if desired, for topping

1. In a 9 x 13-inch baking pan, dissolve gelatin in boiling water. Add the cherry pie filling and stir, or whisk, until pie filling is thoroughly combined with gelatin.
Refrigerate until set.
2. Melt the cream cheese and marshmallows together in double boiler over simmering water until thoroughly blended; remove from over the water and set aside to cool completely. Do not cool in the refrigerator.
3. Whip the pkg. of Dream Whip according to pkg. directions. Using the electric mixer, blend in half of the cooled cream cheese mixture and then repeat with remaining cream cheese mixture until thoroughly combined.
4. Spread the topping over the set gelatin and sprinkle with chopped pecans. Refrigerate until serving time.

Yield: 20 servings
Note: I can no longer get the 3-oz. pkg. of cream cheese in my grocery store, so I have to buy the 8-oz. size and I then use the remaining cream cheese for bagel topping or in other recipes.

"Google account not needed to leave a comment"