Fruit Salad

Holy cow! This salad is amazing. And it has a sad story. Years ago we lived in the Dallas, Texas area. We moved there for my ex-husband's job and went with another family in his company. Since we both were away from family for Thanksgiving, we decided to have Thanksgiving together. The other lady made this salad and it was delicious, so I asked for the recipe - and got it. The next year, we were back in Arizona with family and I was so excited to share this salad because it was so good! I knew everyone was going to LOVE it! We ate dinner with my ex's family and there were leftovers of the salad so I took it to my family's dinner as well. My mom asked what was in the salad, so I told her. She declared that it needed some more fruit and proceeded to open and drain a can of fruit cocktail before dumping in into my salad and mixing it in! Gasp! I don't do canned fruit. I don't do canned pineapple, which is in the salad, but I couldn't taste it, so the salad has retained the pineapple. But an entire can of fruit cocktail is not going to hide. I didn't have any more of the salad that year and I'm afraid that my mom has never been allowed near my salad again....

 

Fruit Salad - adapted from Tara Kropp

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

3/4 c. sugar

1 small can crushed pineapple, drained well

1 contained frozen, sliced strawberries, thawed and drained

3-4 bananas

large container Cool Whip, thawed

In a really large bowl, mix together cream cheese and sugar. Add in the pineapple, then the strawberries. The strawberries can be a little tricky to drain because of all the small pieces, but do the best you can. Mix well. Slice the bananas in the salad and mix gently. Fold in Cool Whip. Refrigerate until serving. This is best eaten the same day it's made, but is ok the next day. Most stores will have a large and small container of frozen, sliced strawberries. I get the large one. Sometimes I even get two of them to have more strawberries. I have added extra banana to it as well. It's hard to ruin this recipe - thank goodness! For the Cool Whip, I get the largest container of it I can find. Yum!