Picnic-Ready Pretzel Salad

I have probably misled you by labeling this as a salad. But its creator, my mom, has always called it that. After some time pondering about it, I've come up with several justifications for calling it a salad:

1. It's a bunch of good things mixed up

2.Usually picnic or barbecue fare

3. It has fruit!

4.  Ambrosia is also a salad

5. That's it

 Make no mistake, this sweet, cream-cheese-Jello-strawberry amalgamation is nothing but a dessert. At my childhood Independence Day celebrations and pool parties, pretzel salad always had a place on the table.  It's a summery, outdoorsy sort of dish, served cold to compliment a hot summer day. I wanted to make it for Easter, but I made a small calculation error and brought home two hams and 10 pounds of potatoes, and had to be coaxed into not making any extra food. In my defense, I was serving a house full of guys, one college football player, and my own boyfriend (who, despite looking like an American version of John Cleese, has been politely asked to leave the all-you-can-eat Canton Buffet for actually eating all he can eat.)  

 

This really saddened me, because the next holiday where pretzel salad could reasonably be expected to make an entrance is the 4th of July, and it's only April.

But then I remembered that I'm an adult, and one of the only benefits of being such is the ability to make any dessert I want any time I damn well please.

So please give a lovely welcome to the pretzel salad! It's delicious! It's pink! It wants to grace your icebox with salty-sweet strawberry flavored goodness! It's so 1950s that you'll want to use words like "icebox" when talking about it!

When I looked up 1950s slang to put here, Google came up with "backseat bingo", which apparently means to get busy in the back of a car. I did not know this.

This is the most fun you'll ever have eating a salad, guaranteed.

xoxoxoxoxo

-A

Pretzel Salad

2 2/3 cups broken up pretzels       1 1/2 cups melted butter or margarine

9 oz cream cheese, softened         1 1/4 cups sugar

1 cup whipped topping                 6 oz strawberry gelatin

2 cups pineapple juice                  2 1/2 cups cut strawberries

Directions

-Place pretzels and butter in a baking dish and bake 10 minutes at 400 degrees. Let cool.

-Beat cream cheese and sugar with a hand or standing mixer, and spread over lukewarm pretzels.

-Dissolve gelatin in boiling pineapple juice. Stir in strawberries, pour into a separate bowl and allow to thicken until almost gelled.

-Spread over topping and refrigerate

-When firm, spread whipped topping on top. Garnish with strawberries and serve.