Strawberry Pretzel Salad

It's been quite sometime since I've posted a recipe up for What I Ate Wednesday!  Since last weekend was Easter, I made a delicious recipe that I just HAD to share with you all!  :) 



You read that title correctly, however; you're probably thinking that this is a salad (green) with strawberries and pretzel's in it.  If you are thinking that, then you are wrong.  But I will say, what I am about to post about, is something so delicious and amazing.  It sweet and salty and is the perfect amount of both!  To find the original recipe, click here.

Ingredients

• 1 (8 ounce) container of frozen whipped topping, thawed
• 2 (3 ounce) packages of strawberry flavored Jell-O
• 2 cups of boiling water
• 2 (10 ounce) packages of frozen strawberries
• 2 cups of crushed pretels
• 3/4 cup of butter, melted
• 3 tablespoons of white sugar
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup of white sugar

Directions

1. Get out a 9x13 baking dish.
2. Preheat over to 400 degrees F
3. Crush pretzels into crumbs (like you would with graham crackers), I like to leave the pretzels a little in tact, but mostly crushed.
4. Mix together crushed pretzels, butter and 3 tbsp of sugar.  Press this mixture into the bottom of your pan.
5. Bake 8 to 10 minutes, until set.  Set aside to cool.
6. In a large mixing bowl cream together cream cheese and 1 cup of sugar.  Then mix by hand with spatula the whipped topping into the cream cheese mixture.  Spread this mixture onto the cooled crust.
7. Dissolve Jell-O in boiling water (2 cups water).  Stir in still frozen strawberries and all to sit for a couple minutes.  When the mixture is the consistency of egg whites, pour and spread over the cream cheese mixture.
8. Place in refrigerator to set the Jell-O (takes about an hour)
9. Eat and enjoy the deliciousness of the salty and sweet mixture!

Layer 1, pretzel mixture

Layer 2, cream cheese mixture

Layer 3, strawberries and Jell-O mixture

Final product:

DELICIOUS!!

Easter 2014!

Why talk about Easter when I can just show you?

Warning: Picture OVERLOAD!!

Claire and Jackson getting ready for the egg hunt!  They had so much fun with it!

Notice my step-dad all relaxed in the background....HAHA!

Claire found an egg!  She was so excited but didn't understand to put the egg in the basket and find more!  :) 

Jackson found another one!  Too bad that tree that the egg was in is more than likely dead.  :(  So not trilled right now with that tree for obvious reasons.

Look at that smile!  LOVE!!!

My brother Jack and Father-in-law Tim trying to find the missing egg that we thought was missing but ended up not being missing.

Claire and her Easter basket.  She was so proud of her finding those eggs!

Don't you also just love her fruit punch mustache.  :)  Hehe!!

Mommy (O'Hara, my sister-in-law) helping count out the eggs!

Chocolate!!!

My Keeley being such a good girl!

Can you tell in this photo that she is so tired?!?!

My dad Randy and his wife (my step-mother) Deb

Relaxing!

My sister-in-law Kelly

My siblings, Joe, Jack, Jena and Jeff playing catch with my nephew Jackson.

Like father, like son playing catch. 

Throwing the ball

Jena making sure the ball doesn't go in the street

Cheese!

Claire wants to play catch too!

Jackson, O'Hara, Jeff and Claire

I love how Jackson always smiles for the camera for me!

Claire was having too much fun and didnt want to go home.

Jena, Dad, Joe, Jack and Mom

Andy and me, rocking that baby bump

(my face looks HUGE here....not a fan of this photo)

I hate how I think I like a photo and then a day later i look back at it and go, "Oh geez, that is not a good photo!"

Tim, Lynn and Kelly

Where's the Easter photos?

What an amazing and tiring weekend we had!  I plan on posting about Easter tomorrow because I was exhausted after hosting Easter at my house and had no energy to transfer my photos from my new DSLR camera to the computer and then to the blog to write about.  My apologies.  I thought about bringing the laptop and camera to bed with me so that I could transfer them over, but then didn't want to take the electronics back down stairs, so you all will have to wait until tomorrow for the Easter recap.  But we will get to a semi-weekend recap....

Friday night - Hold on to your chairs people because let me tell you, we live an exciting life....NOT!  We got home from work and immediately went into yard work.  Andy started weed eating and edging while I started to mow the lawn.  Some of the women in our neighborhood (not all, but some) refuse to do the lawn work, which absolutely boggles my mind.  Why wouldn't you help your significant other with lawn work?!?!!  I want help with the inside stuff, so I help with outside stuff.  Plus it really helps with you relationship and working together (at least it does for us).  Dinner was at the ever exciting Burger King....why?  Because I was craving it for some unknown reason....sounds gross but it was quite tasty.  I was full but still wanted some FroYo, so Andy stopped for me.  This week was a new week for food with me.  I can finally eat more and food tastes AMAZING!!!  Way different from the past 18 weeks....

Brownie batter froyo and coffee froyo with the ever addicting chocolate caramel turtles and chocolate chips....and I ate the whole thing!

I spent the rest of the evening cleaning up the main floor of the house.  My desk is finally clean (should have gotten a before and after shot), vacuumed, dishes, and dusting.  I put the movie, "Tangled" on to clean...LOL!  I love that movie.  It was a choice of "Tangled" or "Frozen". "Tangled" won this time.  :) 

"Tangled" on the TV

Saturday - This day consisted of cleaning, laundry, and shopping and man was I pooped out at the end of the day.  In fact, I was so tired, that I had a headache and I couldn't fall asleep without some Tylenol to take away the throbbing.  I did manage to find a pair of black maternity shorts at the Goodwill for $3!!  Score for a deal!  I had them washed and ready to go and in fact wore them on Sunday for Easter.  Photo to come tomorrow.

Sunday - Easter day was filled with cleaning, food prepping/cooking, forgetting to take photos of all the food, hosting Easter at my house, and taking photos with my new camera!!  I posted only one photo yesterday on Instagram, a shot of the slushie that my husband surprised me with yesterday while I sent him to get some ice!  Awesome husband!!!  

Want to follow me on Instagram??  You can do so by clicking here.

How was your Easter?  

Do you have any fun Easter traditions?

Good Friday

Not only is today really Good Friday, it really is a Good Friday and I've only been up for 2 hours so far!  :)  If that isn't positive and optimism for you, I don't know what is!

{ONE}

My first trip to a veggie/fruit stand (farmer's market) on Sunday!!  I plan on writing a post more about this next week.  All I am going to say right now is that it is AWESOME!!

{TWO}

Hey hey!  Look who I got to see on Saturday!  Jackson and Claire!!! I get to see them again this weekend on Easter Sunday!

{THREE}

Stopped by the Goodwill on Sunday and found these cute onesies for Baby Boy.  The total for all 4 of these were $3.50!!  I'll take it!  The dinosaur onesies are in honor of my sister, because she has the odd nickname of T-Rex and I thought these were just too cute to pass up!

{FOUR}

19 weeks already!!  I am almost half way there to meeting Baby Boy and am SOOOO excited!

{FIVE}

Remember when I was telling you yesterday that I have that horrible sciatic pain in my right buttocks/back?  Yeah, well Andy taught me a way to stretch it out and it totally helps!!  Every time I lie down to get in the stretch Keeley stands right over my head and starts to kiss me.  That photo of her is making sure that I am OK!

{BONUS}

I can't forget to post a photo of my Smokey!  Here he is with his new best friend....lol!  I can imagine Smokey saying, "You are my best friend and I shall name you 'Squishy'"  Haha!!

This weekend's plans include cleaning up the house, cooking and getting ready for Sunday, and then enjoying Easter Sunday with all of our family!  I was worried about the weather there in the beginning of the week, but now I am happy with it.  High is suppose to be around 78 degrees and there is tiny chance of rain (only 10%)!  I hope you all have a great Easter Sunday!