Whipped Cream Fruit Salad

I love this salad now, and I loved it when I was a kid! My brother was diagnosed with diabetes when he was 3 (I was 6), so we didn't get to eat sweet stuff! And my parents are from the midwest, so when we visited our extended families, there was always a picnic! And always, always, someone would bring Ambrosia, the sweet salad with marshmallows, jello, and canned fruit! I'm sure there's other stuff in it, but I never got to eat it, either, so I don't know! (My mother fed us only what Mark could eat. A serendipity was that I didn't get cavities, so there's always an upside! Ha!)

This is my mother's version of a diabetic "Ambrosia."

1 15 oz can unsweetened pineapple bites, or tidbits (rings cut into bite-size pieces), drained

1 14 oz. can unsweetened peach slices, drained and cut into bites

1-2 (depends on the size) bananas, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/8"-1/4" slices

1-2 cups whipping cream, whipped and sweetened (my mother used saccharine) with Splenda or xylitol, if you don't want to use sugar!

Mix the drained fruit and bananas. There will still be juice on them, so mix in 1 cup whipping cream, whipped and sweetened. This should be plenty for a dressing! The 2nd cup is for people like me, who like the whipped cream more than the fruit! Ha!

I've actually tried this with fresh everything. Ironically, I think this is the only fruit salad that I like better with the canned fruit. I wondered if it has something to do with the canned juice! I may try it again with fresh, because it goes against my "grain" to recommend canned anything! Ha!

Also, I've been dealing with my dad's failing health and heart for quite a while now, and "easy" is almost my middle name! The last few salads have been what I think of as "refrigerator salads," which means open the fridge and see what one can add to lettuce to make it at least more interesting! Also nutritious! Also tasty! Sleep is out, so I'm using food for energy these days!

Happy eating!

Lazy Cherry Vanilla Bread Pudding

I love bread pudding. This is one of those recipes, like French Toast, that housewives came up with to use stale bread. When times are tight, you can’t afford to let half a loaf of bread mold or turn so stale that no one will eat it, and when this recipe originated, most women (and it was mostly women, not men) were still baking their own bread. So they came up with a number of recipes to use up everything they had, even when the bread was no longer considered fit to eat. (Um. Their standards were higher than mine. I’ll eat bread in pretty much any form, and if it’s stale, I just toast it!)

This recipe results in a drier, more traditional consistency, although I have to admit that I like mine better a little custardy-ier. I’m still working on getting that custard consistency though, and this is pretty darn tasty in the meantime.

The Recipe
½ loaf white bread (brioche is best, but any good white bread will do)
1 ½ cups dry vanilla cake mix
2 cups whole milk (whole is important because nonfat will taste weird in this)
1 cup dried cherries (or other dried fruit of your choice)

In a 9x12 baking pan, tear the bread into smallish pieces, about ½ - 1 inch each. In a separate bowl, mix together the cake mix and milk until smooth. Add the cherries and mix again. Pour the liquid/cherry mixture over the bread and gently squash the bread with the back of a spoon to make sure it’s all saturated. Cover with foil and allow to sit for about 15 minutes on the counter.

Bake at 350F for 30-40 minutes, or until you can smell it. Remove it from the oven and allow it to sit for 15 minutes to set.


Serve warm with either vanilla ice cream or Ben & Jerry’s “Cherry Garcia” ice cream.

Stewed Prunes (They're good. I SWEAR.)

Ok, I already know what you're thinking: PRUNES? Like GRANDMA ate??

Yes. Seriously. SO GOOD. No lie.

My grandma ate them occasionally for breakfast, mixed into oatmeal, but I like them for dessert.

Yes, really. STOP LAUGHING! ;)

But obviously . . . be careful with these. "Moderation" is the key word here. (Except for me. Curiously, they do not have the "usual" effect on me, but YOU should be careful. Don't say I didn't warn you.)

When you cook prunes this way, they develop a really deep, rich taste, sort of similar to dark chocolate. Do I have your attention now? Plus, they're jam-packed with iron. So here we go:



The Recipe:

Get some prunes. Just toss them into a little pot, like this:


Now add some red wine and some water, in roughly equal parts, to cover the prunes, like this:

If you like your chocolate dark and bitter, don't add any sweetener. If you like sweeter chocolate, add a spoonful of sugar. (I feel a song coming on . . . )

Then put it on the stove and bring it to a boil. When it boils, turn the heat down as LOW AS POSSIBLE, and let them sit there on the heat for, oh, about 45 minutes or so. Go watch some TV or something.

When they're done, some of the liquid will have boiled away, and that's ok. Mine look like this:

Now. The way to serve these is technically over mascarpone cheese. If you don't have that, you can substitute cream cheese or ricotta cheese. Just spoon it into the bowl, and spoon a few prunes and a little juice over the top. But I must confess that one night when I was without any of the above, I just poured some prunes into a bowl and topped them with light sour cream. And they were SO GOOD. The tartness of the sour cream was perfect mixed in with the sweetness of the prunes. I think I actually liked it better than any of the cheeses. YUM. I ate it with a glass of red wine, while watching Law & Order. Like this:

Fantastic.

YES, REALLY. Just try it. ;)