Congealed salads may have gone the wayside in many southern homes, but this Cherry Coke Salad might just bring you right back to it.

Old Fashioned Cherry Coke Salad

Coke Salad. The Amazing Coca-Cola Salad. Cherry Cola Salad. Fruit salad embedded in cherry Jello. Congealed Salad.

It's known by many names, but it's that last term that tends to garner harsh judgment toward the old gelatin encased salads. It's name comes, of course, from that fact that the contents - be they fruit or vegetables - are thickened, or congealed, into gelatin. I'm not sure why congealed salads fell out of favor, and all but disappeared from the holiday table. Maybe it was the term "congealed" that made them sound un-appetizing, but really, although some were made using a bit of shredded vegetables, most are made with fruit, and are simply fruit salads encased in Jello.

Grilled Pimento Cheese Turkey Burger with POM Coca-Cola Glaze

 

A moist flavorful turkey burger, filled with sweet onion, apple, pepper jelly, fresh herbs, a touch of oatmeal and finished with a pomegranate glaze, pimento cheese and coleslaw.

Turkey Burger with POM-Cola Glaze

I represented POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice in the POM Wonderful Recipe Battle with a Take 2 rematch against another blogger representing Coach's Oats. The recipes were required to be both savory and summertime BBQ related, and make use of both products.

I have certainly shared my love of POM Wonderful, it's amazing antioxidant properties and great taste, both straight up out of the bottle and as an ingredient in beverages and cooking, but Coach's Oats were new to me. Well, I know that some of you are big fans of steel cut oats, so I tell ya, these are definitely worth a look y'all. Imagine a 100% whole grain oatmeal with the texture of steel cut, that is stovetop ready in 5 minutes, and can also be microwaved! Yep! Not 30 to 45 minutes - but only 5 minutes - thanks to a special process called Cracked n' Toasted™.

Weekend Cocktails - Watermelon Pomegranate Rum Cooler

I have talked before about the benefits of pomegranate juice and specifically the quality of POM Wonderful brand of pomegranate since being introduced to it last year. Back in the fall, I made several recipes using POM, so I was delighted when the POM Wonderful folks offered to send me another case to try some summer recipes. Loaded with powerful antioxidants and frankly pretty great just straight up, if you haven't gotten around to trying POM Wonderful, you should!

Bone-in chicken, cooked in a cranberry and pomegranate sauce, in the slow cooker.

Crockpot Pomegranate Cranberry Chicken

I thought I would experiment with the vintage cranberry chicken bake recipe, and like the other, use a bit of Creole or Cajun seasoning to spice it up a tad, but this time, I decided to add in some pomegranate juice.

What a delightful addition it was!

The pomegranate just gave this an extra tangy punch above the cranberry and produced a nice sauce, even better than the usual. 

The best part?

Weekend Cocktails - Cranberry Pomegranate Winter Sangria

This winter sangria combines the best of what is available during the season - cranberry, pomegranate, orange, apple, and of course a good red or white wine - and is perfect as a Thanksgiving and Christmas sangria. Plan to double it though!

Cranberry Pomegranate Winter Sangria

I adore a good sangria, especially over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays and let me tell you. They go fast so you might even want to double this, depending on how many folks you have around. We'll add this to our Weekend Cocktail Series, a little bit early so that you can enjoy it with your holiday meal - and I am here to tell you that this is goooooood!

Spicy Pomegranate Cranberry Sauce

When I was growing up we'd be halfway through the holiday meal when I'd pipe up and say, "Hey, where's the cranberry sauce?"  Invariably, the little can of sliced up jellied cranberry sauce always seemed to be forgotten. I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one who really missed it, but I just love to eat cranberry sauce along with a bite of turkey or ham, and it's just not the same without it really.

A cosmopolitan adult cocktail made with citrus vodka, triple sec, pomegranate juice, cranberry juice and lime.

Pomegranate Cosmopolitan

Here's our next adult beverage in the Weekend Cocktail series - The Pomegranate Cosmopolitan

Looking at that blood red, makes me think this would've been a great cocktail for Halloween weekend. Oh well, it'll have to wait till next year!