Fruit Salad, Anyone?



Since I've been craving fruit like crazy since becoming pregnant, I finally made some fruit salad last night!!  I swear I feel like I could sit down and eat the whole bowl..its so good!  The only thing I left out that I normally put in mine is bananas, since as y'all know, they still gross me out.  I 'thought' I was past that point when I was at the grocery store the other day, buying all my lovely fruit for this particular treat.  So I headed over to the 'banana pile'..looked at them almost to say, "Do I want to eat you, or not?"..and then I caught whiff of them.  Ripe bananas.  I quickly walked away, knowing that I definately cannot handle them still!!  I thought food aversions was suppost to go away after you get so far along in pregnancy?!?  18 weeks and still dealing with that..but no big deal. 

So the thing that crossed my mind as I was preparing it last night was this, with fruit salad in particular it seems that alot of people has something they put in theirs (or add to while dishing out a bowl) to make it unique.  With me, a sweet lady I go to church with turned me on to adding a spoonful of Tang whenever I eat it.  Oh yum!  It just 'makes' it for me!!  Damon likes his with marshmellows.  My MIL likes a bit of finely chopped celery, which I find absolutely NUTS!  My mom told me today that she believed when my grandma used to make fruit salad, she added a little corn syrup to the mixture.  Corn syrup??  So it really got my wheels turning, wondering what all YOU out there add to your fruit salad to make it 'yours'!  Please..post and let me know!  I not only find this interesting, but also a good way to gather new ideas to make an old dish, new again!



Speaking of recipes, I promised to post my fabulous slushy punch recipe I made for Christmas Eve (thanks Kristin for reminding me!).  I HIGHLY recommend this recipe for a number of reasons, aside from being yummy!  It makes ALOT (great for parties, showers, etc), its easily divided in half (which is what I did), and it keeps cold for a VERY long time (so you don't have to worry about adding ice or anything, which would water it down).  A brilliant recipe I came across on the allrecipes.com website (if you've never checked out this site..you don't know what your missing!)..it was one of the highest (if not THE highest) rated punch recipes on the site!!  So I can't take complete credit..I guess I can say I found it, tried it, and am passing the word out!! 

Slushy Punch

(NOTE ~ this is half of the original recipe..it makes one 'punchbowl' full)

1 1/4 cups white sugar
3 cups water
1 (3 oz) package strawberry jello mix
1 (23 oz) can pineapple juice
1/3 cup lemon juice (I used freshly squeezed!)
1/2 quart orange juice
1 liter of lemon lime of ginger ale soda (I used diet canada dry)

Boil the sugar, water, and strawberry jello in a saucepan for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.  Then stir in the pineapple, lemon, and orange juices.  Freeze mixture in a gallon ziplock freezer bag until solid.  When ready to serve, place the frozen contents from ziplock bag into a punch bowl and pour the soda over, mixing together.  It would probably be a good idea to let the frozen juices thaw a bit beforehand, as I had to use a knife to break it apart!