Mr. Lady's Contest

Mr. Lady is holding a recipe contest in honor of America's Thanksgiving - as opposed to Canada's, which was about a month ago - and food, glorious food (Oliver!, anyone?). You don't even have to enter a Thanksgiving recipe, just a recipe that you love. So to do my part and boost her number by one more entry, here's my recipe - er, Mom's recipe - for Pretzel Salad.

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Ingredients:
- 2 cups crushed pretzels
- 3/4 cup butter, melted
- 3 tablespoons white sugar

- 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 (8 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed

- 2 (3 ounce) packages strawberry flavored gelatin
- 2 cups boiling water
- 2 (10 ounce) packages frozen strawberries*

1. Preheat your oven to 300º F.

2. Mix pretzels, butter, and 3 tbsp. sugar together in a bowl. Press firmly into the bottom of a 9x13" baking dish.** Bake for 8-10 minutes and set aside.

3. In another bowl, mix together the cream cheese and 1 cup of white sugar with a hand mixer until well blended. Fold in the whipped topping. Spread mixture onto the cooled pretzel crust, making sure to seal up the edges. If you don't, your gelatin layer will drip down to your crust and make it soggy.

4. In a large saucepan, boil 2 cups of water. Dissolve gelatin packets in the boiling water. Reduce heat to low and add strawberries; cook over low for about five minutes. Remove from heat and carefully pour liquid and strawberries over the cream cheese layer (this is why you sealed the edges in Step 3).

5. Cover dessert and place in the refrigerator; allow it to set overnight.

*If you buy the frozen blocks of strawberries, the strawberries in your gelatin will be a bit more like they are in yogurt. If you buy bags of whole strawberries, slice them into ¼" slices while they're still frozen and it'll look prettier and be neater to eat.

**I don't recommend using an aluminum pan for this dessert. The sides of those pans aren't very sturdy and tend to bend and get all floppy with too much pressure. Also, they tend to be ridged and that allows the gelatin to run down to the crust. You'll want to use either glass or metal.

Don't use this...


Use one of these...