Vegetable Sandwich Spread
From My Mother's Southern Kitchen Recipes and Reminiscences by James Villas with Martha Pearl Villas, p. 32-33
2 medium sized ripe tomatoes, cored and peeled
1 small green bell pepper, seeded
1 medium-sized onion, peeled
1 medium-sized cucumber, peeled
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups homemade or Hellmann's mayonnaise
1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup warm water
On cutting board, chop finely the tomatoes, bell pepper, onion, and cucumber, add the salt and pepper, and stir well. Let the vegetables drain in a colander about 15 minutes, transfer to a large mixing bowl, add the mayonnaise, and mix well.
In a small saucepan, combine gelatin and water, stir, and dissolve over low heat. Add the gelatin to the vegetables, stir till well blended, and chill in the refrigerator till firm. (Spread can be kept tightly covered in the refrigerator up to 1 week.)
To serve with cocktails, make small 2x1 inch sandwiches using white bread for the tops and whole-wheat bread for the bottoms (crusts trimmed). For a buffet or informal luncheon, make larger sandwiches.
Alterations to the recipe:
We did not peel the cucumber not core and peel the tomatoes, and the recipe came out fine. We omitted the salt and the draining step. I assume the salt helps get some of the juice out of the veggies, though.
I heated the water and gelatin in the microwave, not on the stove, We did only use 1 cup of mayo instead of the 1 1/2 cups which it called for because the mixture did not seem like it needed the extra 1/2 cup. After the mixture cooled in the fridge and the gelatin set, it did seem like it could have taken more mayo to keep the filling together a bit better. Next time I will try this recipe with plain yogurt instead of mayo. As the recipe advertised, the gelatin kept the bread from being soggy.
We used Oregon herb bread from Great Harvest (www.greatharvest.com), which added lots of flavor. Oregon herb bread is a whole-wheat bread with dill and some other herbs I cannot remember.
JENNIFER SAYS: This recipe is actually pretty easy. The most time consuming parts were chopping all vegetables and making lots of little sandwiches. Small sandwiches were good for YumQuest because it is a potluck so there were numerous other things to try. I did make full sized sandwiches with the leftovers, and they were quite yummy.
LYNDA SAYA: Gelatin! Wow! Who'da thunkit. I would never have guessed had Jennifer not specified. The gelatin performed precisely as advertised, keeping the sandwiches from becoming soggy. These were light and tasty and would be lovely for a luncheon.