patriotic parfait

Got back from Florida on Sunday. I gotta tell you, there's nothing worse than scheduling a ticket in advance only to realize you scheduled it for the wrong days. Who on earth comes back from the beach where her boyfriend is the day before Memorial Day?! All in all it was a quiet holiday to say the least — just mom, dad and me chilling on the back deck with way too many cheeseburgers and hotdogs for three people. One good thing about being home for Memorial Day though? Mom's jello parfait. She makes it on the patriotic holidays, i.e. Memorial Day and The 4th of July, because it's a red, white and blue dessert. I didn't think to take a picture of it, but this image from Martha Stewart's website gets the gist of it. 

Here's how Mama makes it...

First off, she does not do all the little individual parfait glasses. Too much time and effort, and quite honestly we like our portions slightly less delicate. Instead, she uses a large footed glass bowl (like this one). Her version consists of three layers — one jello, one whipped cream, one blueberry. It's really super easy! Just make two boxes of black cherry jello (this is one of our favorite flavors, but if you like you can substitute in a different red flavor like strawberry) and allow it to set in the glass dish. Once it's ready, beat some heavy cream and sugar for yummy homemade whipped cream and scoop it into the bowl as the second layer of the parfait. Top the dessert off with a layer of juicy blueberries and you're good to go. I eat this stuff for every meal when it's in the house! 

-S.