A quick and easy dessert salad, made with fruit, pudding mix, non-dairy topping, chopped pecans, and topped with a pinch of nuts, coconut and Maraschino cherries.

Pineapple Orange Fluff

Okay, seriously. How can you not love a fluff? Easy to throw together. So creamy and delicious!

There are lots of different variations on it these days, but the standard base ingredients usually include some kind of fruit, a complimentary flavor of pudding mix and non-dairy topping (aka Cool Whip) at minimum. I typically like to add mini marshmallows and chopped pecans also.

Three of the most popular versions, and my personal favorites, are pistachio, orange and pineapple, although there are a multitude of variations left only to the imagination! Some recipes these days use pie filling, some sweetened condensed milk, cottage cheese, some use Jello instead of pudding, some use sour cream, some even use flavored coffee creamers or extracts.

A few basic ingredients: cherry pie filling, crushed pineapple, sweetened condensed milk and Cool Whip make up the base for this old school frozen delight! From there, make it your own with easy add-ins.

Frozen Cherry Fruit Salad

I live on the Gulf Coast, and down here, the humidity is as important as the temperature. Maybe even more so! We've been under 100+ degree heat advisories here for awhile now because of that heat index. In June. Already. I pray we don't see a hurricane this year, well, ever again in my lifetime really, that knocks out power for long. Gotta have that air conditioning down here!

When the weather heats up like this, cooling foods are a steady in my house. Watermelon, cucumbers, grapes, cantaloupe, strawberries are consumed regularly around here! Of course, although they may mostly be relegated to those family gatherings more so these days, we have our icebox and freezer desserts too. This cherry salad is one of those that has been around for years.

Sweetened pear halves, stuffed with a cream cheese and whipped cream filling, garnished with a light sprinkling of mild cheddar cheese, and if you're feeling fancy, finished off with a maraschino cherry.

Pear Salad

This is not so much a recipe, as it is a nostalgic reminder of this delicious holiday side from the past. It's so old school, that some of you my age and older may even remember seeing this at school.

Hardly anybody really thinks about pear salad much anymore, and I'd venture a guess that very few of the younger generation even know anything about it and likely wouldn't be all that receptive to it either.

Fresh Fruit Salad tossed with a lime and mint infused simple syrup.

Fresh Fruit Salad with Lime and Mint Dressing

Okay. I'm a gonna say it again. It is HOT y'all. Whew!

Magazines are arriving all decked out in the unmistakable colors of fall, loaded with fall baking recipes, chilis, soups and stews, and apple recipes are everywhere, even already with many bloggers. A Florida Sam's Club even has Christmas decorations out now. Yes. In August. I'm serious y'all!

 

  An old-fashioned heirloom fruit salad recipe, made with whole seedless grapes dressed with a sour cream and cream cheese dressing, whipped cream folded in and finished with a brown sugar and pecan topping.

Grape Salad

This is a retro fruit salad recipe from waaay back. You'll see versions of it all over the internet with very little variation in the base recipe of seedless grapes tossed in a creamy, sweet dressing, usually made with cream cheese, sour cream and sugar and finished with a brown sugar nut topping.

Old Fashioned Holiday Fruit Salad with Custard Sauce

Old Fashioned Holiday Fruit Salad with Custard Sauce - a mixed fruit salad, made with canned fruit cocktail, mandarin oranges, grapes, maraschino cherries and fresh apples and finished with an egg custard and fruit juice based dressing - a long-time favorite on many Southern holiday tables.

Holiday Fruit Salad

Fruit salads are popular for holiday meals and there must be thousands of variations, from congealed, to mixed fruit, to frozen. This classic version made from an assortment of fresh and canned fruits and dressed with an egg custard that substitutes juices for the traditional cream sauce, dates back many years and has been a holiday favorite in my family for years.

 

A classic favorite for years, this fruit salad is made with fresh apples, lite fruit cocktail, mandarin oranges, pineapple tidbits, and dressed with the fruit juices blended with instant vanilla or lemon pudding.

Fruit Cocktail Salad

Hey y'all... it's been awhile! Did ya miss me?? Well, in case you were wondering... you see, as I write this, there was this pesky little hurricane named Isaac that interrupted our lives all of last week. After he barely by-passed the west coast of Florida, he was headed right to the Mississippi Gulf Coast - my backyard!

There were days of prep, checking supplies, filling gas cans for the generator that would keep our freezer and fridge going, bolting down the hurricane shutters, stuffing the garage and storage sheds with all those nice things like chairs, tables and grills that you want to make sure are still around afterward, and all the fun stuff that goes with preparing for a hurricane.

A simple and classic fruit salad made with mandarin oranges, pineapple chunks, marshmallows, sweetened coconut, maraschino cherries and dressed with sour cream.

Mandarin Orange Fruit Salad

This fruit salad has been around a very long time and is another one of those recipes that falls back to my old Bell's Best cookbooks. Those books and that trusty red Betty Crocker binder is literally where many of us southern gals, and often our mothers, picked up a lot of the familiar recipes you see on your favorite southern sites and food blogs today. They were certainly key cookbooks in my learning experience as a young bride in the 70s.

It's very similar to the Old Fashioned 5 Cup Salad, and, in fact, if you're a fan of the movie The Help, set in the early 1960s, this is the very salad that Sissy Spacek, aka Mrs. Walters, ate while she watched The Guiding Light during the bridge parties - though in the movie she calls this recipe ambrosia, as do some of you.

So funny the part where Skeeter walks through the room, and with her bubbly personality and big ole smile says "Hi Mrs. Walters!" who promptly responds by pointing to the television with her fork and saying only "I'm watching my story." Reminds me so much of my Mama and my Nanny Rosalie. You simply did not interrupt them during their "stories," or if you did, the house, or your hair, better be on fire. Seriously!

Buttermilk Congealed Salad - Pink Jello Salad

A tangy form of congealed fruit salad, made with crushed pineapple, flavored gelatin, and your choice of either cottage cheese, buttermilk, cream cheese, salad dressing mayonnaise, sour cream, or any combination of them, with whipped topping folded in.

Pink Jello Salad

This is yet another recipe that is a throwback to my worn out, old Bell's Best cookbook of the 70s. I seem to be stuck in that era here lately don't I? Truth is, have you noticed that retro is quite in these days. Suddenly I'm feeling rather hip y'all!

Waldorf salad is a fruit salad of apples, grapes or raisins, and nuts, tossed with a mayonnaise dressing. Served alone as is, or over a bed of shredded or whole leaves of lettuce, it's a holiday favorite. Add chopped, cooked chicken for a great main dish salad anytime of the year!

Waldorf Apple Salad

Like the Hot Brown, Waldorf Salad comes to us from the kitchen of a hotel, this one the Waldorf in New York City. It is said to have been created oddly enough, not by the chef, but by the maitre d'hotel, or kitchen manager, Oscar Tschirky for a 1893 society party. I actually have made two different varieties of this salad, trying to get one that looked good in a photograph. Just ain't happening y'all, though I tried! Some foods just refuse to be photogenic.

Five cup salad, and all of its expanded cup versions, is another old fashioned fruit salad that is perfect for any holiday table. A very simple but delicious and well-loved dish.

Old Fashioned 5 Cup Salad

Five Cup Salad is another fruit salad that has been around forever - well, for as long as I can remember anyway - and, while it's good any time of the year, is a great addition to the holiday table too.

Many of us will remember it from days gone by in our Mama's and Grandma's kitchens, but as always, there are some variations that have appeared in this fruit salad over the years. Some adding additional cups of various ingredients, some even changing up the fruit, but I think this version represents the old, basic 5 cup salad.

Congealed salads may have gone the wayside in many southern homes, but this Cherry Coke Salad might just bring you right back to it.

Old Fashioned Cherry Coke Salad

Coke Salad. The Amazing Coca-Cola Salad. Cherry Cola Salad. Fruit salad embedded in cherry Jello. Congealed Salad.

It's known by many names, but it's that last term that tends to garner harsh judgment toward the old gelatin encased salads. It's name comes, of course, from that fact that the contents - be they fruit or vegetables - are thickened, or congealed, into gelatin. I'm not sure why congealed salads fell out of favor, and all but disappeared from the holiday table. Maybe it was the term "congealed" that made them sound un-appetizing, but really, although some were made using a bit of shredded vegetables, most are made with fruit, and are simply fruit salads encased in Jello.

 

  Watergate salad is a well-loved fruit salad, made up of pistachio pudding with marshmallows, pineapple and Cool Whip and often other add-ins.

Original Watergate Salad

This original Watergate Salad is another one of those classic recipes that dates back to the 70s and that just about every southern cook has in their party file, though like everything else, with some variations. It's still a very common dish at baby showers, bridal showers, and even weddings down south, and I honestly cannot remember a single event that Mama catered where this wasn't expected on the table.

Ambrosia has moved on to more of a fruit salad these days, here made with apples, bananas, mandarin oranges, mini marshmallows, pecans, coconut and maraschino cherries, but it started out very simply once containing oranges and coconut.

Ambrosia Fruit Salad

Ah, ambrosia... a southern favorite for sure. Classic, old-fashioned ambrosia had only two ingredients though - oranges and coconut - served most often with a dressing of simply orange juice and sugar. It's fallen out of style these days though, because most folks aren't interested in something so plain, but that, my dear, is a true southern ambrosia.