ClevelandAttorney linked to a recipe for something called Benghazi Salad, so I decided to give it a try.
Hop with me over the DelMonte Brand Mandarin Orange Croissant and see the results!
Before we start, "Why Benghazi Salad," you ask? Well it's a variation on a recipe that's been kicking around for years for something called "Watergate Salad".
Why "Watergate Salad?" Well, the recipe comes from around 1975, and I suppose some wag figured it was just a third rate confectionery.
Anyhow, this recipe is an authentic piece of Americana, the kind of thing I remember my mother cutting out of a magazine back and the day and occasionally (oh, no!) making.
Here we go.
1. To 30 oz of Del Monte tropical fruit salad, add one package of Jell-O pistachio pudding.
Note the unnatural radioactive green color. If you found something in nature that color, you wouldn't be tempted to eat it.
Brand name ingredients are essential to authentic 1970s cooking. It's just fortunate that the recipe doesn't call for a can Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup.
2. Add 3/4 cup of of Kraft Jet-Puffed mini marshmallows.
This isn't cocoa season, and I don't want to buy mini-marshmallows that will turn to pale gravel over the summer. So I substituted Kraft Jet Puffed Stacker Mallows which I chopped and dusted with powdered sugar so they wouldn't stick.
3. Add 3/4 cup of chopped pecans (or walnuts).
The chopped nuts in fruit salad is a very 70s thing. Now I love nuts, but somehow nuts in fruit salad strike a horrible, discordant note. I always wish they weren't there. Since wishing this stuff didn't have nuts is part of the authentic period experience, in they go!
4. Add 14 seedless grapes.
Personally, I'd prefer a lot more fresh grapes and maybe less canned fruit.
5. Mix in a tub of Cool Whip.
Cool Whip has always mystified me. It's so easy to whip heavy cream and flavor it just the way you want, why do we need this odd, synthetic pseudo-food? Were it not for the fact the package tells me what to do with it, I wouldn't know whether to put it on jello, grease axles with it, or use it to slick my hair.
If this were my recipe, I'd fold in fresh whipped cream to the chilled salad immediately before serving.
6. Freeze for 30 minutes then chill in refrigerator.
Why? Because if you don't keep this stuff chilled, the Cool Whip goes runny and turns the salad into an unappetizing pile of goo. Er... More of an unappetizing pile of goo.
You never know, though. Either this is going to be amazing, or I'll be shaking my head and saying, "What the hell were we thinking?"
I plan on serving this to my family tonight, after I stuff them full of American Chop Suey. Bwa-ha-ha-ha!