Cranberry Salad

When most people hear the word salad they think of the dish as being healthy but this is really more like a dessert if you look at the nutrition and taste it.  Pie is the real dessert at the Thanksgiving so we fudge it in with the rest of the dinner by calling it a salad. haha!

My mom is about both taste and presentation but when I was little I thought it was so ridiculous that she would put a lettuce leaf under fruit/jello salads since you don't even eat the lettuce.  Really it was just that the lettuce was preventing me from getting every last bit of the fruit/jello salad.  Now that I'm older and wiser I wouldn't serve these types of salads (more like desserts) any other way! :)  Doesn't it look beautiful?!

INGREDIENTS
2 small (12 oz. bags/ 6 cups) fresh cranberries- chopped
3 cups sugar
1 (20 oz. can) crushed pineapple, drained
whipped cream
Green leaf lettuce for garnish

DIRECTIONS
Chop cranberries in blender or food processor (if using a blender chop only 1/2 to 3/4 cup at a time to chop evenly). Mix the cranberries in a bowl with the drained pineapple and sugar.  Place this mixture in a large colander over a bowl and refrigerate overnight.  In the morning add 2 cups whipped cream with 1/2 cups sugar and 1/2 cups broken pecans to the cranberry mixture and refrigerate until ready to serve.  I serve using an ice cream scoop and placing it onto a lettuce leaf.