Well my word. I had no idea the words “congealed salad” would cause such confusion.

Or, you know, the word “squash.”

So for the record, you use YELLOW SQUASH (some people call it “summer squash”) to make the Squash Supreme.

And a congealed salad is what some of you are calling “Jello salad.” This just happens to be one instance where Southerners are not brand-specific, which is odd now that I think about it because we are, after all, the people who refer to every single kind of carbonated beverage as “a Coke.”

Anyway, as penance for all the congealed salad confusion, I will now share with you my very favorite congealed salad recipe. I love it because if I’m going to eat some kind of sweet salad with my meal, it might as well do double-duty as dessert. And this recipe does just that.

Cranberry Orange Dream

Top Layer:

1 1/2 cups boiling water
1 package (8 serving size) raspberry Jello
1 package (8 serving size) cranberry Jello
1 can whole berry cranberry sauce
1 1/2 cups cold water
1 15 oz. can Dole mandarin oranges, drained

Middle Layer:

1 8 oz. package softened cream cheese
1/4 cup sugar
1 8 oz. tub thawed Cool Whip

Crust:

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
1 stick melted butter

Stir boiling water into Jello mix in a large bowl until completely dissolved. Add cranberry sauce until melted. Stir in cold water. Refrigerate about 1 1/4 hours or until slightly thickened (consistency of unbeaten egg whites). Gently stir in mandarin oranges.

While Jello is setting, stir together all crust ingredients and press firmly onto the bottom of a 13×9 inch dish. Refrigerate until ready to fill.

Then, beat cream cheese and sugar in a large bowl until smooth (I use a mixer for this). Gently stir in Cool Whip.

Spread cream cheese mixture evenly over crust. Pour Jello mixture over cream cheese layer after you’ve added the oranges – before it’s fully set.

Refrigerate 3 hours or until firm. Garnish with additional whipped topping, if desired. Chopped pecans are great in the Jello mixture, too.

I do hope that’s helpful.

And, as always, it is my pleasure to serve the internet, one clogged artery (and / or sugar coma) at a time.

Thank you and have a lovely evening.

Last night Big Mama told me about this burger place in her town that serves tostada burgers. Apparently you take two tostadas, load ’em up with refried beans and cheese, put your hamburger patty in the middle of it all, and pure delicious goodness is the result.

Needless to say, I have not been able to stop thinking about this thing they call the tostada burger.

And how I would put a WHOLE sliced avocado on mine. Perhaps even a dollop of sour cream.

Then, to add insult to injury, this afternoon on Guy Fieri’s new Food Network show (repeating tomorrow at 4:30 central), he featured some of the best burger joints in the country. I was folding clothes while I watched, and I almost had to use a clean dishtowel to wipe the drool from my face. There was this one place that puts 1/3 pound of cheese on every burger, so when the cheese overflows onto the griddle it crisps up like a potato chip.

I may have grown up in the Methodist church, y’all, but when I saw that cheddar cheese hit that hot griddle, I almost lifted my hands in praise right there in the guest bedroom.

Anyhoo, it’s pretty much a given that we’ll now have to have some form of burger for supper tonight – because if we don’t, I will dream about them and wake up at 3 in the morning and fire up the grill just like all the other perfectly normal people who obsess about something until it takes over their lives and renders them incapable of sleep.

So in the spirit of fueling my obsession, tell me this, internets: what’s your favorite burger?

Is it one you make – or one you buy?

I always say that my favorite burger is the last one that D. cooked for me on our grill, but now I’m thinking that tostada burger over in Big Mama’s neck of the woods might just change my mind.