Strawberry Pretzel Parfait

Nancy McWilliams

2 cups crushed pretzels
1/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. melted real butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, mix pretzels, sugar, and melted butter. Press into a 9x13 pyrex dish. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and cool to room temperature.

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. cool whip, thawed

Blend softened cream cheese and sugar with a mixer. By hand, fold in the cool whip. Spread over room-temperature crust. Set aside. (I put into refrigerator.)

6 oz. strawberry jello (large package)
2 c. pineapple juice
20 oz. frozen strawberries, thawed and cut up if they are whole. If you get whole frozen, unsweetened strawberries, I cut them up and add sugar.

Heat pineapple juice. Add jello. Do not add any water. Add strawberries. Refrigerate until mixture is soft set. Watch carefully so jello does not set up. It should just be barely set. Pour strawberry mixture over cream cheese layer. Spread carefully. Refrigerate for several hours before serving. Can be made the day before serving. Keeps well for 3-4 days. After that, it still tastes good, but the pretzel crust becomes soggy.

This salad works well for those who need to use Splenda instead of sugar. Use sugarfree jello. Substitute Splenda for regular sugar except in the crust. Splenda can be used in the crust, but it makes the crust very hard. Unsweetened pineapple juice can also be substituted for the sweetened kind.

This salad works well with many menus. Sometimes people have chosen another serving of it rather that the dessert choices I had planned!