Rainbow Surprise

Its summertime! Well its supposed to be summertime; here in New York its a balmy 69 degrees and raining like the dickens! I have been thinking about making a frozen salad for those dog days in July, so I started looking into old recipe books from the 50's to see if I could either update a recipe or use one as a jumping off point. I found three interesting recipes, but each one had several things I did not want to use - like unflavored jello, mayonnaise - things like that. So I used them as my basis for an idea. This is a very creamy frozen fruit salad that also could be used as a dessert. I like recipes that do double duty!

Rainbow Surprise

1 large package Philadelphia cream cheese, softened

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup of Del Monte Pineapple Chunks (in pineapple juice) cut in half and drained

1/2 cup of Del Monte Mandarin oranges (no sugar added) drained

1 cup fresh blueberries (you can also use frozen if you wash off and drain)

1/2 cup cut kiwi - seeded, peeled and cut into pieces

1 cup fresh strawberries, sliced

1/2 cup mini marshmallows

3 TBSP sugar

1 2/3 cup whipped cream

1 TBSP lemon juice

Cream the cream cheese, sour cream, sugar and lemon juice. Gently add fruits and marshmallows.Then fold in the whipped cream, gently incorporating it into the fruit mixture.

Pour into loaf pan (or jello mold or any type of Tupperware container that can be held under hot water to release the salad)

Freeze for 5-6 hours or overnight (keeps well in the frozen state for at least a week)

To serve, gently put pan into sink full of hot water for a minute to help it melt a little to release. As I said, I used a loaf pan, but think in the long run Tupperware or flexible jello mold might work better.

Invert onto serving dish and garnish with 3 blueberries surrounded by 4 mandarin orange slices to make a flower design.

You can use other fruits including bananas (although I would increase the lemon juice to 2 TBSP)