Thursday Recipe - Jungle Salad with Poppy Seed Lime Dressing

Years ago, I decided to throw a party based on one of my favorite movies - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I love it. It's so over-the-top and cheesy and fun. Spiders and snakes and evil priests and magic rocks and INDIANA JONES. I have a thing for the young Harrison Ford. Tasty...

Anyway, the focus of the party was not me drooling over Indie, but the food. Five course meal based on the dinner scene - sautéed beetles, jungle salad, eyeball soup, snake surprise, with chilled monkey brains for dessert. Mmm, tasty.

I'll have to post the rest of the recipes later, but here's the salad:

Jungle Salad with Poppy Seed Lime Dressing

Salad:
1 lb Spring Mix Greens
1 small head of leaf lettuce
2 tangelos or oranges, peeled and cut into small chunks
1 pomegranate OR 1 red bell pepper and 1/2 c. strawberries, washed and sliced.

Wash leaf lettuce and rip into bite size pieces. Arrange on platter. Sprinkle Spring Mix over top. Arrange tangelos in circle on top of greens. Sprinkle pomegranate seeds over top (or chop pepper fine and sprinkle over whole salad, arrange strawberries inside ring of tangelos). Serve with dressing.

Dressing:
1/3 c. sugar
1 1/2 T. vinegar
1 1/2 T. fresh lime juice
1 T. lime zest
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. dry mustard
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1 T. poppy seed

Mix sugar, vinegar, lime juice, zest, salt, and mustard with electric mixer until sugar dissolves (about 3 minutes). Beat oil in gradually. Keep beating until dressing is thick and smooth. Stir in poppy seed. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours. (If dressing separates, just mix well before serving.)

Thursday Recipe - Eyeball Gelatin

Just for kicks, and because I can, I made a bowl of eyeball gelatin for the camp tonight. It looks utterly disgusting. I can't wait for their reactions, especially when I munch on a juicy eyeball. (Pictures will follow, if I remember my camera tonight.)

I specialize in food with disgusting names and appearances that really taste pretty good. I've got an entire menu based on the dinner scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Bugs, eyeball soup, snake surprise, chilled monkey brains - yep, all there and all delicious because they aren't really what you might think they are.

So for today, enjoy a bowl of delicious eyeball jello.

Eyeball Gelatin

2 boxes peach gelatin
1 can lychees (look for them in the oriental section)
about two dozen small red grapes OR maraschino cherries

Mix gelatin according to directions on the box. Set it aside to thicken. Open and drain the lychees. Insert a grape into each lychee. Doesn't it look like an eyeball? If the lychees fall apart, you can either discard them or put them in anyway as chopped eyeball parts. Gently fold your eyeballs into the gelatin. Refrigerate until set.

Serve and wait for the comments.