Old-Fashioned Salad Take 2 on Day #8

I have to admit...I do not think of "sweet salads" as "real" salads...  I think of them as dessert...or maybe, a dessert salad.  Something you eat along side a piece of coconut cake, or a piece of pecan pie.   We never had sweet salads when we were growing up in Arkansas.  I think they are grand, but not to eat with anything remotely savory...  I even have a problem with cranberry sauce - but I will save that for a Thanksgiving post.

All that being said, I am going to give a recipe for a Sweet Salad today! 

 

Arkansas Watergate Salad

My dad was a rice farmer in Arkansas.  Because of that, we used more rice than most people.  I LOVE rice and can eat it with almost anything.  This recipe for Watergate salad has rice in it, and it is delicious!  The recipe comes from the cookbook in the picture above.  It is a fabulous cookbook. I got "Prairie Harvest" as a high school graduation gift, way back in 1985.  It is a church cookbook - St. Pepter's Episcopal Church from Tollville, Arkansas (near Stuttgart, Arkansas - a farming community near where I grew up).  Stuttgart is the rice and duck capital of the world and hosts the World Championship Duck Calling Contest each year near Thanksgiving.  Now, you haven't lived until you have been to the

Duck Calling Contest in Stuttgart!!

Rice, pistachio pudding mix, cool whip, pecans, and crushed pineapple - what's not to like?

I love these little China bowls...  When I worked for an electric utility company right out of high school, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, one of my co-workers was helping his Aunt enter a nursing home facility.  I was about to get married, so he and his wife offered me whatever I wanted from his Aunt's kitchen dishes, pots and pans!  I was SO excited!  I'm sure the rest of the family had already gotten the expenisve treasures, but I got SO many fabulous things!  A lovely set of every-day China was a true treasure for me.  I especially love these little bowls - not too big, and not too tiny - just right for a big spoonful of Watergate salad with rice :)  I have been using them for about 23 year now - and they are still perfect!

Arkansas Watergate Rice Salad

1 - 8oz container Cool Whip, thawed

1 - 3oz. pkg Jello instant pistachio pudding

1 - 8-9oz can crushed pineapple, do not drain (in own juice)

1 cup cooked white rice

1 cup chopped pecans

Mix ingredients together and refrigerate until ready to serve (until good and cold).

 

I hope that you are having a fabulous day.  I am watching the NFL Draft with my husband and father-in-law.  I deserve extra points for this :)

Until tomorrow,

~ Joeby