What Can You Do when You Have Strawberries and Pretzels?

Being Irish my family has always had some really interesting meals when it came to st. Patrick's day. I always looked forward to a new surprise all the time no matter what, because it always ended up being very good. Now I am not a huge fan of all that soda bread or Irish whiskey cheesecake, but I do love strawberries. Years ago my grandmother gave my mom a recipe that we all call Irish pretzel salad. I never really understood why it was called that, but to me it never really mattered it contained lots of strawberries and cool whip. So with anything containing those ingredients it was always right up my alley. I make this dish now not only for st. Patrick's day, but whenever I have the products to make it. My kids really enjoy this dish especially all the cool whip. I mean come on who can resist this? So the items you need for this are three cups of pretzels crushed(any brand will do), but is really good with the butter flavored ones. Around 3/4 cups of butter make sure you soften it up a little. If it's too hard place it in your microwave for about twenty seconds or so, five tablespoons of sugar, which you can use white or brown, six ounces of cream cheese, you can add more. I usually use the whole package of creme cheese I love this stuff. Heres the great ingredient three or four cups of cool whip or something similar to it, a package of strawberry gelatin unless you want to use strawberry/banana, which taste wonderful with this mixture. Finally the last two items are the strawberries, which I would say around three or four packages of frozen strawberries. Now if you don't have the frozen you can use fresh ones that's what I used today and around two cups of boiling water. I just basically fill up my glass measuring cup, which is a little over two cups.

I do recommend using defrosted strawberries, you just get a better consistency for some odd reason. Now grab yourself a bowl and mix your pretzels, 1/2 cup of sugar, and the melted butter. Mix it up pretty well for about a minute or so. Then spread this mixture into a casserole dish or whatever dish you are going to use that is oven safe. Put your oven on around 350, let this mixture bake for about eight minutes making sure you keep on eye on it so it doesn't burn. Please no longer than ten minutes in the oven. Today I baked it for seven minutes it was great. Now grab your cream cheese, a cup of sugar, and your cool whip. Spread this all over the pretzel layer that just came out of your oven. Let this sit for awhile so that you can prepare your gelatin. Dissolve your choice of gelatin in the boiling water. Once you have done that you are now ready to add the strawberries to the jello. If there is any juice in your package of strawberries don't be afraid to add that to the mixture. Let this sit for around ten minutes or so. Next spread this all over your cream cheese layer. Now you have what we call a Irish pretzel salad. This is a great to have anytime dessert, but superb for company.