Wilma on Wednesday -- Pork Chops and Jell-O

Oooh, that does sound gross, doesn't it? Actually, today it's a twofer, as in I made 2 recipes from Grandma's cookbook. But first, I thought you might want to see a picture of Wilma, just to get to know her a little bit.

There she is in 1962, standing in the Gulf of Mexico by Galveston Beach, with me, looking quite cute if I do say so. Um, yes, now you can figure out how old I am. This was the year that she and my Grandpops moved to Seabrook, Texas (about 30 miles from Galveston) from Dallas. She's about 50 in this picture.


So first up: Pork Chop Casserole


6 pork chops, brown in a small amount of oil (there are only 2 of us, and one of us won't eat leftovers, so I only used 2, about 3/4" thick)


Place 1/2 cup rice in casserole and sprinkle with 1/2 tsp of garlic salt (I used the 1/2 cup because it didn't seem like that much. Did use the garlic salt, but did brown a bit of minced garlic when I browned the pork chops)


Place pork chops over rice and add 1 can Beef Consomme, undiluted, and 1 tsp of Worcestershire added to the soup. (That's a terrible sentence, but that's exactly how it's written.)


Cover each chop with 1 thick slice tomato, 1 thick slice of onion and 1 thick slice of green pepper in this order.


Bake covered at 350 deg. F for 45 minutes or until rice is fluffy.


Roland didn't have high hopes, but he was pleasantly surprised, as was I. I loved the veggies on top, he scraped them off and didn't eat them.)

Strawberry/Cranberry Jello-O Salad


There are a lot of jell-o salad recipes in this cookbook, and tonight seemed like a good night to start on them, what with the chicken salad sandwiches we were having for dinner.


2 pkgs of strawberry Jell-O (sizes are not mentioned in the cookbook, but I won't make you guess... buy the 3 oz. boxes)
1-1/2 c. hot water (boiling)
1 pkg of frozen strawberries (small) (10 oz. box)
1 large can crushed pineapple and juice (8 oz. can)
1 large can whole cranberries (the whole cranberry sauce, I think there's only 1 size)
1 T. lemon juice

Leave strawberries out of freezer 30 minutes before using. Mix in order given.


Large pyrex oblong dish. Refrigerate until set.


I used the 12 x 8 size casserole dish, dumped the jello-o and the boiling water. Stir until the jell-o is dissolved, and then dump in the rest. Make sure the cranberry sauce is pretty well mushed in. I picked up the clumps of cranberry sauce with a fork, and then mashed them through the tines with a wooden spoon. I'm sure they teach this technique in all the finest culinary schools. What? They don't use ingredients that come in boxes and cans? Their loss.

So delicious!