I have an addendum to the stupidly simple fruit salad recipe that has stood me in good stead for many years. This variant version of the recipe is… even tastier, but it depends on one thing being available that seems to be seasonal.
Prepare your taste buds and follow me.
Here is the revised ingredient list for the fruit salad – it’s all in the frozen fruit & veg aisle of your local Wal-Mart and – this is the important part – your local Aldi, if you have a local Aldi.
The two items on the left are from Wal-Mart; the item on the right is from Aldi, and – here’s the trick – it appears to be a seasonal thing that is only stocked late in the year, around the winter months. I suppose one could also modify this recipe to make smoothies, but trust me, this is some delightful eatin’. Also, you may want to add sliced fresh or frozen strawberries, or perhaps blueberries or raspberries, if that’s your thing. (I did add a small bag of frozen strawberry slices to the mix on this occasion; it would’ve been just fine without it.)
Here’s how stupidly simple it is. Get a big bowl. Pour everything in: the Wal-Mart fruit blend first, then the Aldi fruit blend, then the cherries. And yes, this is going to make you a huge batch of fruit salad – six or seven pounds’ worth.
Save the bag the cherries came in. Turn it upside-down over the contents of the bowl as best you can; let the juice run down from the bag into the bowl. After about an hour, discard the empty cherry bag and put the bowl in the fridge for 3-4 hours. This lets the frozen juice attached to all the fruit return to a liquid state and mix together, without letting the fruit hit room temperature.
Now stir up the bowl and spoon all of the fruit into little containers and seal the lids on the little containers. I have a motley mix of food containers and used/cleaned containers that once held other food in them.
As you dish out the contents of the bowl into little containers, you’ll notice there’s a fair amount of juice left. For those of you wondering what the glaze is, this is your glaze. It’s all you’ll need. Nothing else needs to be added. Trust me, it’ll be sweet enough.
Pour the juice equally among all of your containers, over the fruit that’s already in there, but no more than halfway up that container.
Freeze the containers. As liquid freezes, it expands. The juice mixture will creep up and over the contents of the bowl.
What’s that, there was still just a smidge of juice left in the bottom? That’s okay, just drink it. Consider it a delicious preview.
About an hour before you serve the fruit salad, take the appropriate containers out and let them thaw, but not for too long. The juice that’s all over everything is now the most deliciously decadent slush, adding to the flavor of everything else in the bowl. Peach slices are now peachy + cherry/dragon fruit/passion fruit juice slush. Pineapple slices are now pineapple + cherry/dragon fruit/passion fruit juice slush. I promise you’ll like it.
Which is a very good thing, because you’ve just made six or seven pounds of it. Enjoy!
Edit: Just to be clear as to why I didn’t just source everything fresh for this and got frozen fruit instead – I’m presently in a situation where I have no working vehicle, so I’m dependent on grocery delivery, either Wal-Mart or Instacart, which – at least locally – delivers groceries from Aldi. If you’re in a position to get the ingredients individually, or if you choose to get similar ingredients elsewhere because you have an objection to either of the grocery chains mentioned, by all means go for it!
This looks amazing. Making it for a family event. Can i freeze a BIG batch? Or have you made it in a huge batch for an event?
I generally just make it in these 6-7 pound batches, but even if I was going bigger than that, I’d try to keep it down to single servings and freezing those individually to preserve the slush. With a large batch I’d be worried about it staying frozen solid longer, and then over the course of an event the all-important slush warming up enough to revert to a liquid.