Brugmansia" fruit salad" is beautiful. Someday, I will add her to my collections . Thank you for sharing your recent photo of her. Cara

Thanks to everyone who posted. I ended up making an amalgam dressing. I was going to mix mayo and chile sauce, a bottle of which I had in the pantry for just this type of occasion. Sadly I gave away all my own home canned chile sauce that I made last year. But I found a half jar of salsa in the back of the fridge, so rather than have two half used condiment jars in my tiny fridge, I dolled up the salsa. So my dressing consisted of two big dollops of mayo, two big dollops of salsa, the juice from the can of crabs, a big dash of lime juice, and a big shake of Mrs. Dash's Cajun seasoning and also some lime chile seasoning that JessyF gave me. Man I love that stuff. And a big shake of garlic powder for BF. My shrimp were tiny and I couldn't find affordable avocados so I only had half of one, so I didn't bother to make a composed salad. It was sort of clean out the fridge salad anyway, the lettuce was some less than stellar iceberg which we had languishing in the fridge. To that I added some artichoke hearts, Spanish olives and radishes for the color, a couple of scallions, two stalks of celery, the half avocado, and topped with tomatoes when served. The tomato came from the local "farm" market which is really not a farm market, and it might as well have been an apple for how "crispy" it was. I liked the salad except for the Spanish green olives. I added them because BF likes them, but come to find out, he doesn't like crab! I have never liked green olives. They weren't a bad idea, just not something I care for. Glad to know now that BF doesn't like crab, because I can save a whole lot of money not ever buying it or making him crab cakes. And now I know what to order when we go out!! Here's the pic: Next time I make shrimp salad I might try marinating the shrimp in a vinagrette, just to try something new. Or Ruthanna's remoulade, which is a great dressing for a lot of salad types!

2 1/4 c. pretzels 4 tbsp. white sugar 1 1/2 sticks melted butter 1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese 1 c. sugar 1 (8 oz.) Cool Whip 1 (6 oz.) strawberry Jello 2 c. boiling water 2 (10 oz.) pkg. frozen strawberries (or 3 c.) CRUST: Combine 2 1/4 c. pretzels, crushed, 4 tbsp. white sugar, and 1 1/2 sticks melted butter. Bake 15 minutes at 350 degrees. Mix cream cheese, sugar, and Cool Whip until creamy. Spread on cooled crust. Combine strawberry Jello, boiling water, and frozen strawberries. Let congeal slightly, pour on top, refrigerate.

I've started using walnuts or pistachios instead of pine nuts: Making Pesto? Hold the Pine Nuts NY Times Op-Ed by Jonathan C. Slaght Oct. 19, 2015 (Excerpted) MINNEAPOLIS — AT this time of year, kitchens across North America are filled with the aroma of freshly picked basil, fistfuls of peeled garlic bulbs, hunks of Parmesan, cruets of olive oil and jars of pine nuts. It’s pesto season. Mixing these ingredients into a delicious sauce for use throughout the winter months is an end-of-summer tradition. The tiny, delectable pine nut is often viewed as essential to a classic pesto “alla Genovese,” but it is the most vexing ingredient — for the high cost of even a small packet or jar of them. They also come at another kind of price: The pine nut industry may be contributing to the crash of an ecosystem. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a majority of pine nuts imported into the United States come from the Korean pine tree, a keystone species found primarily in the southern parts of the Russian far east. The temperate rain forest of this wild corner of Russia represents a mere 1 percent of the country’s territory yet contains about a quarter of its endangered vertebrate species. ....An ever-expanding road network, driven by selective logging, is exposing more and more of the region to the covetous reach of pine nut harvesters. Once collected, the cones are shucked and the nuts, still in their shells, are sold to Chinese merchants, who haul truckloads across the border to China. From there, they are shipped to overseas markets. Depending on the market price, local traders will pay about $6 for a sack of Korean pine cones, which can hold on average about 125 cones. Last year, I (the author) encountered a group of collectors in the forest that had filled 4,000 sacks — half a million cones — in just six weeks. At the peak of the harvest season, the forests are populated with thousands of collectors in hundreds of makeshift camps. The global demand is making this harvest unsustainable. The entire Korean pine ecosystem (which supports numerous species depending on the pine nuts for winter food) could collapse if it continues.