Frog-Eye Salad recipe

Here's another decades old recipe. It has the weirdest name: Frog-Eye Salad. I suppose the tiny, round acini pepe pasta might look like frog's eyes to imaginative kids (or maybe to some of my brothers), but if you get past the silliness, the salad is pretty yummy.

I got the recipe off the back of the package of acini pepe pasta such a long time ago. I haven't looked at the back of the package recently; I'm not sure if the recipe is still there.

The "salad" is pretty unhealthy with its load of instant pudding, sugar, Cool Whip and mini-marshmallows but boy, oh boy does it bring smiles of happiness to my family. Kids really like it and most of my adult friends do to. Even my vegetarian kids get guilty pleasure in eating this stuff. You just have to think of it as dessert rather than anything remotely salad-like.

Frog-Eye Salad

1-1/3 cups (8 oz) Acini Pepe, uncooked
1-¾ cups milk
1 can (20 oz) pineapple chunks, drained (reserve ¼ cup juice)
¼ cup sugar
1 pkg (3.4 oz) vanilla instant pudding
1 can (8 oz) crushed pineapple, drained
2 cans (11-oz each) mandarin orange, drained
2 cups frozen Cool Whip, thawed
3 cups miniature marshmallows
½ cup flaked coconut

Cook pasta 11 minutes. Rinse with cold water; drain well. In large bowl, beat reserved pineapple juice, milk, sugar and pudding 2 minutes. Gently stir in pasta and remaining ingredients; cover. Refrigerate at least 5 hours. 12 servings.