Strawberry Cream Dessert

Sometimes, DH sees recipes, and brings them home to me to try. Since it's difficult to get him to tell me what he'd like me to make more of sometimes, I usually make anything he brings home as a request.

This was one of his requests, taken from a local 'free' newspaper called The Merchandiser. All the while I was making it, it sort of reminded me of my strawberry pretzel salad...I guess it was the use of jello and fruit.

There's a lot of 'processed' foods in this, but oh well. I'm far from a purist.

Strawberry Cream Dessert

(Local newspaper)

*Note from the recipe: This cool and elegant dessert will serve a crowd. You could use the chocolate sandwich cookies (Oreos), for the crust if you'd like, but I think the golden variety is really nice.

30 Golden Vanilla Sandwich Cookies (Golden Oreos)

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 (6 oz.) package Strawberry Jell-O

1 3/4 cups boiling water
1 (6 oz.) can pineapple-orange juice (DH and I had a conversation that they USED to sell these 6 oz. cans of juice similarly to how they sell mango and pineapple juice in the ethnic sections nowadays. I had no luck finding these little cans, so I just bought myself a 64-oz. Dole Orange-Pineapple juice in the OJ section, and had tons left over for drinking/smoothies)

1/2 cup cold water

2 cups mashed or pureed strawberries (about 3 cups if you're using whole berries)

1 (8 oz.) tub of Cool Whip, thawed

Directions

- Crush the sandwich cookies by placing in a heavy-duty plastic zip bag and pounding with a rolling pin (I would think a food process would do this much easier/faster/cleaner)

- Place crumbs in a 9"x13" glass baking dish and pour melted butter over it.

- Mix well with a fork, and press the buttered crumbs into the bottom of the pan. Set aside

- In a large bowl (seriously...use a HUGE BOWL), combine gelatin with the boiling water, and stir until the gelatin mixture completely dissolves.

- Add the pineapple-orange juice, and the cold water, and stir well. Add the strawberry puree and mix.

- Refrigerate until the mixture becomes a bit thicker (about 10-15 minutes)

- Using a wire whisk, stir the thawed Cool Whip into the mixture until smooth

- Chill in the refrigerator for another 10-20 minutes, or until the mixture thickens a bit more but is not set

- Pour over the crumb crust in the baking dish, cover, and chill for 4 hours or until set

- Dessert can also be frozen

- Serves 12-16