Frog Eye Salad / Frog Eye Fruit Salad

I got this recipe from a co-worker/friend. Delicious, however, it yields a very large bowl of salad, but it will be gone quickly, especially at a potluck. 

Before you start with making the salad, place a large metal bowl in the freezer. It's preferable to use a metal bowl when whipping cream. These chill and stay cold longer. If you don't have a metal bowl, it's ok; however, it will take longer for the whipping cream to get firm. 

INGREDIENTS: 
2 large cans of crushed or sliced Pineapple - Drain really well by pressing lid into the can to get most of the juice out of the pineapple. Should yield 2 cups of juice. Measure and pour 2 cups of juice into a large saucepan. 

1 Cup of sugar - Add to saucepan 

3 egg yolks - Add to saucepan 

2 Tablespoons flour - Add to saucepan

1 tablespoon Lemon Juice - Add to saucepan  

2 large cans of Mandarin Oranges - Drain - Add any of this juice to the pineapple juice if it does not make 2 cups. Otherwise, drain and set aside oranges with pineapple. 

1 quart / 2 Pint containers of Heavy Whipping Cream.

1/4 cup Stevia plus 1/8 cup Sugar. 

1 bag small marshmallows

1 small bag of sweetened coconut (Optional). You may also brown the coconut for a few minutes under the broiler. Be careful to watch and not let it burn. This adds a different texture and flavor to the salad. 

1 box of Acini De Pepe Pasta. Pronounced Ah-see-knee-de-peppy. Cook pasta until al-dente and drain well.  NOTE: you can not drain in a colander because the little pasta pieces will fall through. Best to use a metal sifter so you don't lose any.  When drained, set in fridge to cool. 

Bring Pineapple juice, egg yolks, flour, lemon juice, and sugar to a low simmer making sure not to boil or it will burn. When it starts to thicken, remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes.  Add it to the pasta along with the well-drained oranges and pineapple and place in fridge to cool. 

While the pasta is cooling in the fridge and the sauce is cooling in the pan, it's time to make the Whipped Cream.  Get your well-chilled bowl from the freezer. 
Start with a pint of the whipping cream. Whip on high, adding a little sugar and stevia mix at a time until firm peaks form.  Then add a little more whipping cream until you have all the whipping cream in firm peak form. 

Remove the pasta mix from the fridge and fold into the whipped cream. Fold in marshmallows and coconut and place back into the fridge. Let it set for several hours to get firm. 

I've put up a picture of the size of bowl I needed for this dish. As you can see, the bowl is 1/2 my wide fridge width and it fills it up the large bowl. 

Enjoy! 

Homemade Laundry Soap

***REMEMBER: This laundry soap will not cause the water to suds up. This soap does not have additives in it, meaning you will need less than you think and it rinses clean.*****

We made this about a year ago and used roughly 80% of it so far.  It is amazing how little it costs to clean clothes with quality laundry soap. Total cost of ingredients is around $25-30 at Wal-Mart. The cost of the bucket was a one-time $8. We no longer spend $20 a month or two on laundry soap to clean our clothes. The cost of the following is a less than 10 cents a load and lasts approximately 300 loads. We do still buy dryer sheets to control the static, however, that is around $3 every few months.  
(I put current Wal-Mart Prices beside the ingredients)

First start with the following ingredients: 

• 1 Box of Borax ($3.38)
• 4 Bars of Fels-Naptha Bar Laundry Soap ($1 ea)
• 1 Box of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda - ($3.25)
• 1 - 2 Containers of your preference of Laundry Chrystals - I prefer Purex Lavender. ($4.75 for a 28 oz. or $8.96 for 55 oz.) Here's a link to make your own.  http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2013/01/make-your-own-fabric-softener-crystals.html
• 4 lb Boxes of Baking Soda. ($2.25)
• 1 Large container of Oxy Clean-89 loads.   Preferably the plastic bucket so you can store some near your washer. The large bucket will be too much/big to keep on your dryer. ($9.47)
• 1 Large container with a lid - A 15 gallon size will do and give you mixing room. 
• A laundry scoop. 

 

Start with shredding the Fels-Naptha in a food processor. Place the shredder plate on top along with the blade below. What you will do is feed the bars of soap through the top to shred like cheese then the blade with chop it into tiny balls/pieces. Don't worry about it being perfect, some shredded cheese pieces is OK. It will dissolve in the laundry water just fine. 

After you have the soap bars shredded, take your bucket and start layering everything. Put about 1/8-1/4  of each ingredient into the bucket and repeat until all ingredients are used.

 You may want to mix the ingredients with your hands half-way through and then start layering again. Mix the ingredients all together very well. You don't want to see the lines such as this still left.

After you are done layering and mixing really well, put some of the mix into the plastic Oxy Clean Container that you kept. Measure out 3 heaping Tablespoons into the scoop. Tap it to level it. Mark it off so you don't have to measure again. This is the correct portion of the laundry soap.  The mark is about 1/4 of a normal laundry soap scoop; however, I typically use a bit more when I have a heavy / really large load of laundry. 

This is the well-mixed end product: 

Enjoy and happy cleaning!