A Vintage Salad

Happy Monday!  To remind, you can leave comments or questions on this thread.  Scroll to the bottom to see where.

I posted my Husband’s Ambrosia recipe on Instagram recently and I loved reading the comments.  The “salad” brought back fond memories for many and that is one of the wonderful things food can do.  I would love to share the recipe here and some twists on it and how we arrived at this more modern version of a vintage recipe.  The original fruit salad called for canned mandarins, canned pineapple, sweetened coconut, marshmallows and sour cream (some people use Cool Whip.)

New and (we think) Improved Ambrosia

• 2-3 cups of fresh fruit cut into bite size pieces. The fruit we love the most: segmented oranges, halved grapes, diced apple, chopped fresh strawberries, sliced banana and pineapple. We have also used blueberries and peaches. The more variety, the more delicious!

• ½ cup shredded unsweetened coconut

• ¾ cup mini marshmallows (I use Dandies vegan marshmallows)

• 1 cup unsweetened coconut yogurt (CocoJune is my favorite coconut yogurt)

Mix everything together in a bowl and refrigerate until chilled. Depending on which fruits you use, this can last for up to 2 days in the fridge.

This salad is surprisingly delicious and a hit whenever we serve it to kids and adults.  

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My son who is notoriously “choosy” about what he eats (vegan, but fish), has a new favorite breakfast: sourdough toast (he loves the bread from Jyan Isaac in Santa Monica) + some sort of jarred or tinned fish (he loves anything from Fishwife) + fresh tomatoes + sliced pepperoncini (usually Divina) + a squeeze of Graza olive oil (best price I have found is on Vitacost.)

So, I recently learned something about gelatin in food products like marshmallows and Jell-o. I had always assumed the gelatin was beef-based but it is almost always PORK-based.  I am sharing this in case pork is not part of your diet.  My husband avoids pork, so we buy Dandies marshmallows.  I also noticed a few years ago that the turkey and chicken sausages made in-house at my supermarket were in pork casings. Just an FYI.

Something else I stumbled upon recently is in the Thrive Market app.  I usually order through the website, but if you order through the app (very user-friendly) you can get an extra 15% off.  I love saving money.  THEN I also noticed something on the app called “Thrive Anywhere.” I clicked on the “Start Saving” and it took me to a page with discounts on other websites including Athleta, Ninja and more.  Good to know!  If you are not a Thrive Market member, you are missing out on saving a lot of money and they deliver.  I share my membership with all my children and they love ordering from Thrive also.  I pay for my membership and I am not sponsored.  If you would like to try Thrive, feel free to use this link for 40% off your first order.

I am looking ahead to my annual summer trip to Long Island and I am dreading the mosquitos.  We love eating our meals outside on the deck but the bugs can be a nuisance.  The only thing we have found to be even remotely effective is a large fan directed towards the table.  We have tried citronella candles and sprays, but they don’t work that well. PLEASE HELP!!  What have you found to actually work so that the mosquitos don’t bite?  Thank you in advance!

xxPamela