ISUKappa, are you eating at my parents' house?:D

(substitute green bean casserole for that other vege, and add Watergate salad because my sister MUST have it)

Does anybody remember why it's called Watergate Salad? Pistachio pudding/cool whip/other ingredients I don't know because my mom is the one who makes it...

Y'all's brunches sound so elegant- violets and all the other beautiful touches! When I'm about 100, it will finally get elegant here. :( Here is what happened while we were cleaning up the branches from this week's storms so we could have our cookout: our 2 youngest boys were dueling with branches and I leapt over the picnic table with the nearby Harry Potter sword and took out after them, yelling, "Gryffindor destroys Slytherin!" Then I looked up and saw the neighbors staring over the fence.:eek:

Then our daughter called and told us that the cat she rescued 2 days ago had kittens under her bed and her vet said she needs to bring them home if she's leaving for the weekend.

Sorry for the hijack...I was just dreaming of elegance and how it ain't gonna happen here.

Same here, carnation. I have two very sick kids so I can't take them to my mom's as planned. Easter Lunch?? Easter breakfast and lunch here usually consists of chocolate bunnies, peeps and Reese's peanut butter eggs! Dinner though.. we have real food for dinner. I was going to do a roasted chicken at my mom's house but now I'm not sure what to do. These kids have gone through a bottle of cough medicine and two boxes of Kleenex so far. One is on the upswing (after a full week) and the other one is only on day 2. <sigh> It's going to be a lonnnnnnnnnnnng weekend. Oh yes, and I'm dogsitting for my ex-husband's dog, so that adds to the chaos too. No easter egg hunt this year cuz that dog would find all the eggs and chew through them while we were sleeping!

Whatever's on the menu at Georgia Brown's.

I love Watergate Salad, but nobody else in my family does. *sigh* I was, however, intrigued by your question. So - here's your answer! I did not know that there was also a Watergate Cake!

For the uninitiated:

Watergate Salad

1 package (4-serving size) Jell-O Pistachio Flavor Instant Pudding & Pie Filling
1 can (20 ounces) crushed pineapple in juice, undrained
1 cup miniature marshmallows
1/2 cup chopped walnuts nuts
2 cups thawed Cool Whip Topping

Stir the pudding mix, pineapple with juice, marshmallows and nuts in large bowl until well blended. Gently stir in whipped topping. Refrigerate 1 hour or until ready to serve. Garnish as desired.

Makes 8 servings

Honey that sounds completely revolting unless it's served as a dessert. I just cannot wrap my head around using jello salad as a side-dish to an entree. It boggles the mind. And this is from the chick whose country has no qualms about eating the organs of animals.

Peeps are the best!

It is a dessert - otherwise, it's sickeningly sweet. I've seen it with drained marachino cherries, too.

And I couldn't eat organ meat if you paid me! If something filters out the impurities of an animal, it can't possible be good for a human.

Steak and Kidney pie is awesome and I miss it! Kidney has a very unique flavour. Once it's cleaned and cooked, it's all about the meat and not its prior function. Of course I was the only one out of four siblings who would eat kidney or liver so... :)

Glad that's a dessert, otherwise I might puke. I don't possess a sweet tooth so that amount of sugar is sickly.

When all the kids in the family were small we used to have a ham and a bunch of other yummy traditional stuff. Now that the "baby" of the family is 13, we go a less traditional route and grill out hamburgers and hotdogs.

Thanks for the link, honeychile! We've discussed it a few times and my mom always said, "I don't know, maybe because it's full of fruits and nuts?" So it looks like somebody named it that for a catchy headline and the rest is history.

Like all jello/pudding/coolwhip side dishes, at least for midwesterners, Watergate Salad is the bridge between lunch and dessert. You stuff your face until you're ready to burst, then go through the line again for a big clump of Watergate Salad, 7-up Salad or some kind of jello with strawberries and whipped cream. Then you plop yourself in a chair for an hour or so before you go for a piece of pie or cake and a cup of coffee.:D

(After you play cards and the kids run wild looking for eggs and eating chocolate, your grandma will insist you all have a sandwich for the road because you must be famished by now!)

I think my husband and his brother would Die if they didn't get his Grandma S's scalloped corn. And if they're feeling really crazy, his Grandma L. will make creamed peas. If you see those creamed peas on the table, then you know it's a party!

I remember when I asked my grandma how to make scalloped corn. She told me to crush up soda crackers (how many?...enough to soak up the liquid)...add eggs, stir, s&p, etc...put it in the oven (how long?....'til it's done). She was a phenomenal cook and never owned a cookbook! I just took my daughter to visit UNL and we stayed with my parents where we were fed a "yabba dabba do" steak, baked potatoes and.....creamed peas. It's not everyday we fly to anyplace with 5 inches of snow on the ground with no skiing in sight, so it was definitely a party!

(:( She is not going to UNL, she got into her first choice....so now I have no chance of having a Kappa daughter :( )

I've eaten it or coconut, marshmallow, mandarin orange, pineapple, maraschino cherry, and sour cream Ambrosia as salad, even though, I can see why both would seem more like dessert.

We're doing the usual ham, garlic rosemary mashed potatoes, green beans almondine.

It will be our first Easter without our oldest at home. :( Hopefully the university dining services will have something nice for the students.